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HON. EDMOND BEALL 

State Senator Representing the 47th District of Illinois and Pop- 
ularly Known as the "Stork Mayor" of Alton, 111. Active in 
the Work of the Illinois Vice Commission. A Retired 
Manufacturer, Senator Beall Has Stated that He 
Would Willingly Devote His Entire Fortune to 
the Removal of the Dangers that Confront 
Working Women through Low Wages 
and Other Causes. 



THE GIRL'S FIGHT 
FOR A LIVING 



How to Protect Working Women From Dangers 
Due to Low Wages 



By 
THOMAS H. RUSSELL, A. M., LL. D. 

Associate of the American Academy of Political 
and Social Science 



An Impartial Survey of Present Conditions, Results 
of Recent Investigations, and Remedies Proposed. 
With Statements by Hon. Barratt O'Hara, 
Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois; Hon. Edmond 
Beall, Employers, and Governors of Many States 



Illustrated With Portraits 



Chicago 

M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY 

Publishers 






Copyright, 1913, by 
M.A. DONOHUE&CO. 



©CJ.A351292 
^01 



DEDICATED 

TO ALL WORKERS IN THE HIVE 

OF HUMAN INDUSTRY 

AND 

LOVERS OF HUMAN PROGRESS 

EVERYWHERE 



1f "The investigation in Illinois brings out in bold 
relief the necessity of safeguarding the women 
and girls who labor for their daily bread. 
Virtue is too priceless a possession in woman to 
be taken from her either by the wiles of design- 
ing men or by the necessity of gaining her 
daily bread. 

If "I believe in a minimum wage for women, 
and this minimum should be fixed at not less 
than Eight Dollars a week, — enough, at any rate, 
to give her the necessities of life and some of its 
comforts. I firmly believe that a woman ought 
not to be required by any employer to labor for 
Six Dollars a week, or less, and be required to 
maintain herself. 

If "Our entire country needs to be aroused on 
this subject, and it is being aroused as never 
before." —EARL BREWER, 

Governor of Mississippi. 



If "The question of a minimum wage for women 
has passed beyond the realm of economics. 
If "It has become intricately woven into the 
problem of our American womanhood, and as 
such it is unquestionably the most vital issue 

of today." 

— BARRATT O'HARA, 
Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois. 



CONTENTS 



Preface 



Chapter 

I— "The Bitterest Battle of AIT 
II — What is a Living Wage? . 
Ill — The Minimum Wage Campa 
IV — Low Wages and Immorality 
V — The Illinois Investigation 
VI — Data Given by Employers 
VII— The Testimony in Detail . 
VIII — More Important Evidence 
IX — The Inquiry Widens . . 
X — Investigation in Peoria 
XI — Many Governors Co-operate 
XII — Conditions in Washington 
XIII — Many Girls Resent Charges 
XIV — Opinions of the Press . 
XV— What Girls and Women Say 
XVI— Two Views of the Problem 



gn 



. 7 

Page 
. 11 

. 19 

. 27 

. 45 

. 51 

. 65 

. 72 

100 

116 

120 

129 

143 

161 

168 

178 

195-200 



PREFACE 

In this wonderful period of the world's progress the 
welfare of working women has taken its place among the 
problems that urgently demand solution. 

The most recent development is the formation of public 
opinion on the subject of a " living wage" for girls and 
women who are compelled to earn a livelihood. Through- 
out the United States public attention has been focused 
on this subject by the work of a Commission of the State 
Senate of Illinois, appointed to investigate the so-called 
" white slave traffic" in the state and "to devise a compre- 
hensive plan for the complete suppression of such traffic. " 

Very early in their investigations the members of the 
Commission sought testimony from employers and em- 
ployed on the question whether or not there is any con- 
nection between the low wages paid to women in many 
industrial and commercial establishments and the 
immorality and commercialized vice admitted to be sadly 
prevalent in our cities and towns. 

The views of witnesses examined by the Illinois Commis- 
sion differ widely on this question and a similar divergence 
of opinion is found among public men, employers, and 
leaders in women's work throughout the United States, 
while public opinion in general appears to support the 
contention that at least a partial solution of the problem 
will be found in the establishment by law of a " minimum 
wage " for women workers. 



PREFACE 

The purpose of this book, therefore, is to present, as 
impartially as possible, the results of the investigations 
already made, by the Illinois senators and many others, 
in order that a clear view may be had of the justice of 
the demand for a living wage as a means of suppressing 
immorality and vice in our larger centers of population. 

The public interest in the question is intense. All 
classes of the community are concerned. Not only the 
workers whose pay envelopes will be affected by remedial 
legislation; the employers who will have to pay the in- 
creased wages or change their systems of help; the rela- 
tives dependent in whole or in part on the wages of women, 
and the parents whose girls are now or may be engaged in 
industrial effort, — not only these, but all classes of every 
community are interested in this grave economic problem 
as far as it concerns the comfort, the happiness, and 
the morality of the working women of America. 

There is no desire to strive after the sensational in this 
volume. The evidence given before the Illinois Com- 
mission is sensational enough, in all conscience, and is 
presented here without exaggeration or coloring. The 
testimony, so far as it is used, is given fairly and imparti- 
ally, as reported through mediums that would be natur- 
ally inclined perhaps to favor the views of the employer — 
the advertiser. But to the great credit of the newspapers 
be it said that whatever their editorial views may be, they 
have not failed, as a rule, to report the evidence in a spirit 
of fairness and the same spirit will be observed in these 
pages. 

The effort has been made to give employer and employed 
alike a square deal, leaving the public to make the final 



PREFACE 

decision whether the demand for a minimum wage for 
women^is justified by the facts. 

In the evidence given by employers many intimate 
details of business are brought out, while the testimony of 
employed girls and other women not so fortunate casts a 
bright light on many dark spots in our social organization. 
The result is a mass of information that will tend to 
clarify the public view and aid in the wise expression of 
the public will through state or national legislation. 

T. H. R. 
Chicago, April 10, 1913. 



Chapter I 

"THE BITTEREST BATTLE OF ALL" 

What connection, if any, is there between the low 
wages admittedly paid to thousands of young girls and 
women in our varied industries and the frightful wave of 
immorality and vice that, with equal candor, is generally 
admitted to be flooding our centers of population? 

This question has been carefully considered from many 
standpoints of late and the answers are widely divergent, 
but through them all there seems to run a current of con- 
viction that present conditions cry aloud for some amend- 
ment. 

From the President of the United States to the little 
cash girl in the department store and her anxious mother 
at home, the question is agitating all our people. It will 
not down until it is settled — and settled aright, in the 
interest of our common humanity. 

The Bureau of Labor at Washington has wrestled with 
the problem and in a report declares that as a direct and 
immediate cause of girls going wrong low wages are 
"almost a negligible factor," though indirectly their in- 
fluence is "marked and disastrous. " 

Many great employers of labor, too, can see little or no 
direct connection between low wages and immorality, 
asserting that the prime causes of vice are lack of moral 
stamina, improper environment in the home, and the in- 
fluence of evil associates. 



12 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

On the other hand, a noted woman investigator of social 
and business conditions emphatically says : " In my judg- 
ment the close connection between low wages and vice is 
unquestionable, and as wages stand now in the stores, in 
the shops, and in the factories, a heavy percentage of 
them are much too low for public safety. " 

"Neither lack of living wages alone nor of moral 
training only is entirely responsible for the wrecks upon 
the stream of life," says another investigator, "but both 
together go far to determine the fate of the many un- 
fortunates.' ' 

"The Bitterest Battle" 

"No girl, be she rich or poor, is perfectly safe from 
the innumerable temptations that beset her on every hand 
in a great city," he continued. "But the poor girl work- 
ing for a pittance has the bitterest battle of all. To her 
the terrible temptations are doubly trying. 

"Anyone who declares this is not a question of wages 
cannot be correctly informed or does not dare to tell the 
truth, but anybody who says it is simply a question of 
wages is equally in error. This is both a question of morals 
and of money and of much more. The lack of moral and 
religious training of our boys and girls has much to do with 
it." 

What Some Women Say 

Now read one of the many letters from women of the 
underworld, received by the Illinois Vice Commission. 
The writer said: 

To the Commission: — Girls don't go wrong because 
they are hungry or because they need clothes. They go 
wrong because they are tempted by lies and overpowered 
by the evil in men. 



"THE BITTEREST BATTLE OF ALL 1 13 

They listen to the fair and pretty things that men tell 
them, and they fall because they think they can trust them- 
selves and trust the tempters. The employer — I was a 
good girl and I worked in a store. 

I didn't get much money, but that did not matter. I 
lived on $8 a week and would be living like that now, but 
I met men. They seemed to consider me their prey and 
all the time it was fight — fight. They wanted to be nice 
to me, they said, and take me to the theaters and treat 
me fair — and give me a chance to enjoy life. 

I didn't know men were bad, all bad — where a girl is 
concerned. I thought only women were bad. I thought 
all a girl had to do to remain good was to be truthful with 
herself. God pity women who think that and who keep 
their trust in men until it is too late. 

Every day it was someone else — always smiling at me, 
always trying to give me a "fair chance" to be happy. In 
the street they followed me. These I could avoid — but 
the "friends" who hung around! 

That is the big, big secret of the thing that makes a 
good girl bad. If they had let me be — if they had only 
let me be — only let me live as I wanted to, I would not have 
to slink into the room when your Commission was trying 
to solve things and wouldn't have had to sit in a corner 
with a veil down, afraid to look good women in the face. 

Another cry from the underworld, signed "L. M.," 
echoed the words of the first letter. It was more bitter, 
though, and it read in part: 

You're looking for the things that made such women 
as I. Low wages! Dance halls! Hunger! Cold! They 
all helped a bit, but they did not turn the trick themselves. 

I don't know any girls who sold themselves for money 
to buy bread or clothes, but I do know lots of us who hit 
the road for hell because a lot of blackguards kept hounding 
us with their rotten "attentions. " God help the men and 
not us. We're all right when we start — all we need is to 



14 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

be left alone. There are hundreds and hundreds of kids 
and sports who hang around State street and wait like 
wolves for the tired girls to leave the stores. 

Why don't you make the men be good? All the wages 
in the world won't help us. Make the men good and the 
girls will be good. Now they haven't got a chance and 
they never will as long as the law smiles at one and spits 
at another. 

Moral Reform Needed 

Regarding the need of reform a Chicago pastor said 
in his Easter sermon: 

"Vice and crime and immorality — in high places and 
low, in public and private life — are assuming alarming 
proportions. The cry goes up, 'What shall I do to stop 
it?' Put a few more policemen walking beats, put more 
laws on the statute books, build a few more prisons, and 
then you imagine you will turn this generation towards 
high righteous living. This is like curing a disease by 
rubbing a little liniment on the outside." 

When Opinions Differ 

Here then we have examples of widely different opinions 
and before any correct solution of the problem can be 
arrived at the public must decide which is right and which 
is wrong. 

Can a girl working for $5 or $6, with necessary 
expenses amounting to $8 a week, make both ends meet 
without resorting to evil courses? 

That is part of the question that needs a satisfactory 
answer, but it is only a part. Should a girl be compelled 
to work for a mere living wage — the pittance that will 
furnish only necessary food, shelter and clothing — or 



"THE BITTEREST BATTLE OF ALL" 15 

should she be enabled to enjoy also some little comforts 
and to lay aside something for the future out of her wage? 
This also calls for an answer and will be considered later 
on. 

Worse Than Black Slavery 

"Before the civil war," said Lieutenant Governor 
Barratt O'Hara, chairman of the Illinois Vice Commission, 
"this country had black slavery. In return for his un- 
remitting industry the black slave received his living. 
If it is true that the women of today are working eight and 
ten hours a day and practically surrendering their liberty 
as well as their industry through long hours, as testified 
before the Commission in many instances, then they are 
receiving less than a living. In such cases only one term 
can be applied, whether their condition be moral or im- 
moral, and that is white slave and that presents to the 
nation a bigger question, if anything, than that of the 
black slave. 

"This condition has been growing in the realization 
of the people for years, and the solution can be obtained 
only through the co-operation of the employers and the 
employed. The Commission's only endeavor is to open 
the eyes of both classes to the menace, and to prepare the 
public for a solution which will be a solution. We are 
trying to work for the employer as well as for the em- 
ployees. 

"We have been told of girls who work ten hours daily 
and receive $2 to $2.50 a week. We doubt if this con- 
dition is at all general, but in due course of time we shall 
reach these persons and get their story as well as that of 
their employers. The Commission will not stop until 



16 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

it has reached every avenue of trade in which girls are 
employed. 

"The Commission believes that the problem it is at- 
tempting to solve concerns every state in the Union and 
requires the co-operation of them all." 

Stunned by the Testimony 

Early in March, 1913, Mr. O'Hara wired from Chicago 
to the New York Herald as follows: 

To the Editor of the Herald: Our investigation into 
the causes and effect of white slavery in this state has 
shown conclusively that thousands of good girls are going 
wrong every year merely because they can not live upon 
the wages paid them by employers. 

The conditions revealed to our commission have been 
only half told in the press reports. Senator Edmond 
Beall, a veteran of the civil war and a man of wide ex- 
perience with the world, broke down completely and wept 
during the examination of the victims of low wages at 
our executive session. 

Senator Beall is a retired manufacturer, worth a great 
many thousands of dollars. He told me that he intended 
to spend every cent of his fortune and every hour of his 
time to save American womanhood from the piteous 
menaces that our investigation has shown constantly 
surround her. 

"White slavery presents a hundred times greater 
national crisis than did black slavery," the venerable 
senator declared to me, "and I say that as one who fought 
four years in the battles of the civil war. " 

Senators Tossey and Woodard of the Commission have 
declared themselves in like manner. We have investi- 
gated this matter sanely and conservatively. We have 
tried to let the sunlight in on a condition and to spare 
individuals. We have accorded to all witnesses exact 




THOMAS H. RUSSELL, A. M., LL. D. 

General Secretary, Clean Language League of America, 

Who originated the crusade against suggestive songs, 

one of the contributing causes of immorality 

investigated by the Illinois Senatorial 

Commission. 




HON. NIELS JUUL 

State Senator of Illinois, a prominent Chicago lawyer and member 
of the Illinois Vice Commission 



"THE BITTEREST BATTLE OF ALL" 17 

justice and full courtesy. And at the end of our labors 
so far we are appalled, stunned, horrified. 

American womanhood is in grave peril solely and only 
because American manhood profits from the helplessness 
of womanhood to enrich itself. There is no other con- 
clusion to be derived. It is a national shame, but it 
must be faced now and boldly. 

The Illinois Commission began its labors with no idea 
to do other than investigate the question of white slavery 
as the term is applied to the buying and selling of women. 
We were forced soon, however, to realize that low wages 
were the real fundamental cause of white slavery, and that 
to study the effect and ignore the cause would be to give 
to our investigation the appearance and reality of a farce. 
We refused to be parties to a farce. 

Governors Pledge Their Aid 

Thirty-two governors of states have pledged their aid 
in remedying conditions if it be shown that there is a 
direct connection between low wages and immorality. 
President Wilson will lend his co-operation and state 
legislation will be supported and made more effective by 
national laws for the better protection of women and girls 
should the need arise. 

In the discussion of this subject there is nd intention 
or desire to cast undue aspersion upon the general morality 
and purity of women workers. All such intention has 
been expressly disavowed by the leaders in the present 
nation-wide agitation. In the matter of virtue and moral 
sense our womanhood compares more than favorably 
with that of any other civilized country. The nation is 
proud of its working women, proud of their character, 
of their efficiency and of their achievements. The leaders 
of the movement for a minimum wage desire simply to 



18 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

make their path in life easier and smoother, to remove 
conditions that lessen the power to withstand temptation 
and that make the life of some working girls "the bitterest 
battle of all." 



Chapter II 

WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE? 

The exact amount that may be called a " living wage" 
for women undoubtedly varies according to locality, while 
other considerations must also be taken into account. 
But before fixing any definite amount as a standard for 
any locality the question, "What is a living wage?" must 
be answered from another standpoint. 

Is it to be an amount that shall provide only the bare 
necessaries of life or shall it include some provision for 
comforts, recreation, and the future? On this point 
opinions differ as widely as they do on the connection 
between low wages and vice. 

Some Chicago employers, questioned as to what, in 
their judgment, is the smallest sum on which a self-support- 
ing girl can live in that city, mentioned $8 as their idea of 
the minimum. Others said $7.50 and in Washington and 
elsewhere the testimony has been that girls can live there 
for less than in Chicago. 

In a report made public March 12, 1913, the social serv- 
ice committee of the Milwaukee Federation of Charities 
declared that a working woman needs $8.90 a week to sup- 
port herself in the Cream City — and the committee urged 
young women who expect to support themselves to keep 
away from the city unless they have an assured income of 
at least $9 a week, domestic servants excepted 



2D THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Consider $8 a Living Wage 

The first apparent result of the white slavery senatorial 
investigation in Illinois was an increase in the wages of 
800 of the women and girls employed by the International 
Harvester Company to a minimum of $8, while the com- 
pany planned also to raise the salaries of 700 other female 
employees. 

"We found by investigation that the women and girls 
who already were getting $8 would expect to be paid more 
than green hands, who formerly were getting $6 and who 
will now get a minimum wage of $8," said Mr. Clarence S. 
Funk, general manager of the company. "This will re- 
sult in a horizontal graduated increase which will affect 
practically every woman and girl in our employ. In- 
stead of merely raising the wages of 800 it means that 
1,500 will be benefited by the new rule. 

"It will cost the International Harvester company 
about $75,000 annually to put through this scheme. At 
present the lowest priced girls in our employ get $6. 
Even the most ignorant and unskilled of the foreign girls 
are never paid less than that. 

"We consider $8 a living wage for a girl, whether living 
at home or not; it makes no difference. Our welfare 
workers have been studying this question for several 
months and decided that $8 was about right. Of course 
if Illinois should pass a minimum wage law making $12 
the legal wage we would at once give the girls another 
raise." 

Another official of the Harvester Company said: 
"Our investigation of women's wages was undertaken 



WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE? 21 

last July. When the report came in from our investigator 
we determined to establish this wage. The $8 basis was 
recommended by the investigator and was also derived 
from government reports. After hearing all the evidence 
we did not deem it fair to pay our girls less than $8 a week, 
in view of the increased cost of living. Our investigator 
made some study of the living conditions — how deeply 
I cannot say. 

"This move is in no way linked with the vice investiga- 
tion movement. No question of morality entered into 
our action at any time. Our desire was to establish a 
minimum that would be fair and reasonable. The girls 
affected are mostly of foreign birth. They are not re- 
quired to dress up for their employment. Many of those 
to whom we will pay $8 could not earn a dollar down- 
town. Of course, this makes the eight-dollar minimum 
proportionately higher for them." 

Here we see that the question of dress enters into the 
problem. Girls employed in factories, as a rule, are not 
required to dress for their work as expensively as those 
engaged in clerical duties or in selling goods. The amount 
estimated as necessary for dress might therefore be less 
in the case of the factory girl, and a living wage for her 
might be fixed at a lower figure than for the girl whose 
expense for clothes and laundry work is necessarily greater. 
And this is only one of the factors to be taken into con- 
sideration in establishing an equitable living wage for all, 
unless the various employments are differentiated as to 
wages — which, for purposes of legislation, would no doubt 
cause endless confusion and dissatisfaction. 



22 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

The Living Wage Principle 

The principle of a living wage has always been more or 
less firmly fixed in the consciousness of trades unionists. 
"It is a vital principle, ,, says Webb in his " Industrial 
Democracy/ ' "that a man by his labor should five, and 
notwithstanding all the teachings of political economists 
and all the doctrines taught by way of supply and demand, 
a greater doctrine overrides all these, the doctrine of 
humanity. " 

In the United States the idea of a living wage is ex- 
pressed by organized labor in the "Union scale," or the 
rate of wages that the Union demands for its members 
in any given industry. This is the minimum that the 
organized workers regard as required for right living. 
Not the minimum on which life can be supported, but the 
lowest rate for which a man ought to work. In the eyes 
of union labor, therefore, a "living wage" is in reality a 
"right living wage" — sufficient to afford the worker not 
merely a livelihood, but a decent livelihood. 

The same view is taken by those who advocate for 
women in the state of Illinois, not the minimum wage of 
$8 on which life may be supported, but a minimum wage 
of, say, $12, on which a woman worker may live decently 
and in some degree of comfort. 

The idea of establishing a living wage by law is not 
by any means new or untried. In Australia legal boards 
have been created with authority to establish a minimum 
wage, for the express purpose of preventing the remunera- 
tion of any class of workers from being reduced below the 
cost of living. And in New Zealand, a court of arbitration 
is empowered to fix a minimum wage that will apply, not 



WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE? 23 

only to the parties interested in any particular dispute, 
but to all who are "connected with or engaged in the in- 
dustry to which the award applies within the industrial 
district to which the award relates." 

The Claim to a Living Wage 

"The claim to a living wage is a right/ ' says Professor 
John A. Ryan of St. Paul Seminary, in an able work on 
the ethical and economic aspects of the subject. "It is 
an individual, natural and absolute right." And natural 
rights are the moral means or opportunities by which the 
individual attains the end appointed to him or her by 
nature. Hence, conditions of labor that make the life of a 
working girl "the bitterest battle of all" may easily be 
regarded as an infringement upon her natural rights. 
Especially would this seem to be the case when the amel- 
ioration of such conditions would not interfere with the 
reasonable profits of the employer, as was testified by 
several employers before the Senatorial Commission 
in Chicago. 

The right to a living wage is said, ethically, to be valid 
against "the members of the community in which the 
laborer lives." This refers not merely to the employers, 
but probably to other persons as well, or to the com- 
munity in its civil capacity, that is, the State. And 
every economic and ethical argument that may be ad- 
vanced in favor of a living wage for the male laborer 
applies equally, no doubt, to the self-supporting female 
worker. 

"Hence women who are forced to provide their own 
sustenance," says Professor Ryan, "have a right to what 
is a living wage for them. Since they have no other way 



24 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

of living but by their labor, the compensation therefor 
should be sufficient to enable them to live decently. 

And children of either sex who have reached the age at 
which they can, without detriment to themselves or 
society, become wage earners, but who cannot perform 
the work of adults, have a right to a wage sufficient to 
afford them a decent livelihood. They are entitled to 
this because their wages, generally speaking, constitute 
their sole source of maintenance." 

This doctrine of wages is said by Professor Richard 
T. Ely, the noted economist of the University of Wis- 
consin, to be "a clear-cut, well-defined theory, resting 
upon broad Christian, religious and ethical foundations." 

A Decent Livelihood 

Mr. C. S. Devas, in his "Political Economy," sum- 
marizes the minimum livelihood that should be guar- 
anteed to all workers thus: 1, the means of physical 
existence; 2, practical possibility of marriage; 3, a 
separate home; 4, insurance against sickness, old age and 
industrial accidents; 5, some access to the treasures of 
literature, art and culture. 

" The American standard of living/' says John Mitchell, 
"should mean to the unskilled worker, carpets, pictures, 
books, and furniture with which to make the home bright, 
comfortable and attractive; an ample supply of clothing 
suitable for winter and summer, and above all a sufficient 
quantity of good, wholesome, nourishing food at all times 
of the year." 

Apply this standard to the case of a self-supporting, 
growing girl of 17, working for $5 a week, living in a 



WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE? 25 

barren hall bedroom and subsisting on ten-cent lunches — 
and note how far she comes from realizing it. 

President Gompers of the American Federation of 
Labor describes a living wage as "a wage which, when 
expended in the most economical manner, shall be sufficient 
to maintain one in a manner consistent with whatever 
the contemporary local civilization recognizes as in- 
dispensable to physical and mental health, or as required 
by the rational self-respect of human beings." 

In the views of these two great and respected labor 
leaders there is a strong note of conviction that the hire 
of the laborer should afford him (or her) some of the com- 
forts of life as well as the bare necessaries, and that the 
laborer is worthy of his hire. 

The material requisites of decent living for a working 
woman may be summed up as a reasonable amount of 
food, clothing and shelter. Then there should be added 
a reasonable means of provision against sickness, accidents 
and the exigencies of the future, and the means of enjoy- 
ing a moderate amount of amusement and recreation, 
literature, social intercourse and religious association. 

Food, clothing, shelter, insurance and mental and moral 
culture — these are essential conditions of a decent liveli- 
hood. Any wage that falls short of securing them for 
the working girl will therefore be deemed to fall short of 
being a "living wage." 

[N. B. — The estimates of various persons as to the actual 
amount required to support a working girl in different 
cities of the Union will be found in the testimony before 
the Illinois Commission, reported in subsequent chapters.] 



26 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Obligation of the Employer 

In the judgment of many students of political economy 
and ethics, the obligation to pay a living wage falls upon 
the employer "as a reasonable consequence of his position 
in the economic organism. From this responsibility he 
cannot free himself by appealing to the labor contract or 
to the productivity of labor; for the former is consistent 
with extortion, while the latter is usually unknowable, and 
is always inferior to needs as a canon of distribution.' ' 

Inability to perform the obligation suspends it (as 
no one is morally bound to do the impossible), but inability 
must not be so interpreted as to favor the superfluous 
needs of the employer at the expense of the essential 
needs of the worker. The employer's right to obtain 
interest on the capital invested in his business, though 
real, is subordinate to the worker's right to a living wage. 
[Ryan, "A Living Wage," p. 261.] 

Under this Christian view of the ethics of employment, 
the employer is obliged to pay a living wage before he 
obtains interest on his invested capital, while a corpora- 
tion is under obligation to pay a living wage at the ex- 
pense of dividends. 



Chapter III 

THE MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN 

As a protector of natural rights, the State, it is claimed, 
ought to compel employers to pay a living wage. This 
is the view taken by many eminent economists, including 
that great authority, Professor W. S. Jevons, in "The 
State in Its Relation to Labor.' ' And though it is dis- 
puted by others of perhaps equal authority, the fact re- 
mains that the state does in many instances regulate the 
amount of wages paid to labor. 

As we have already seen, the principle of a living wage 
by legal enactment has already been tested in the Mini- 
mum Wage Boards and the Wage Arbitration Courts of 
Australia and New Zealand, respectively. The results 
are said to be a complete justification of the wisdom of 
such laws. Of the New Zealand law an impartial ob- 
server, Dr. Victor S. Clark, says in a bulletin of the 
United States Bureau of Labor, "The act is a success 
beyond the expectation of many of its early supporters." 

In this country the demand for a minimum wage for 
women is of comparatively recent growth. Perhaps 
nothing did more to concentrate public attention upon 
the question than the plank in the platform of the new 
Progressive party, adopted at Chicago August 7, 1912, 
which said: 



28 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

"The supreme duty of the nation is the conservation 
of human resources through an enlarged measure of social 
and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work un- 
ceasingly in state and nation for ... . minimum 
wage standards for working women, to provide a 'living 
wage' in all industrial occupations. " 

This demand made a strong appeal to the inner con- 
sciousness of the people and was indorsed by many who 
did not support the Progressive platform as a whole nor 
vote for the candidates of that party. Many Democrats 
and Republicans alike indorsed the principle of the mini- 
mum wage in their campaign speeches, and Governor 
Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, the Democratic candi- 
date for the presidency, whose election followed in Novem- 
ber, was believed to be heartily in favor of it. 

The Chicago Vice Commission 

Prior to this, however, in April, 1911, a Vice Commis- 
sion appointed by the Mayor of Chicago and composed of 
leading citizens, had reported on the connection between 
low wages and immorality as follows: 

As to the economic side of the question — the life of an 
unprotected girl who tries to make a living in a great city 
is full of torturing temptations. First, she faces the prob- 
lem of living on an inadequate wage — six dollars a week is 
the average in a mercantile establishment. If she were 
living at home where the mother or sister could help her 
with mending, sewing and washing, where her board would 
be small — perhaps only a dollar or two toward the burden 
carried by the other members of the family — where her 
lunch would come from the family larder, then her condi- 
tion might be as good as if she earned eight dollars a week. 

The girl who has no home soon learns of " city povrty, " 
all the more crue 1 to her because of the artificial contrast. 



THE MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN 29 

She quickly learns of the possibilities about her, of the 
joys of comfort, good food, entertainment, attractive 
clothes. Poverty becomes a menace and a snare. One 
who has not beheld the struggle or come in personal con- 
tact with the tempted soul of the underpaid girl can never 
realize what the poverty of the city means to her. 

One who has never seen her bravely fighting against 
such fearful odds will never understand. A day's sickness 
and a week out of work are tragedies in her life. They 
mean trips to the pawnbroker's, meager dinners, a weak- 
ened will, often a plunge into the abyss from which she 
so often never escapes. 

Hundreds, if not thousands, of girls from country towns 
and those born in the city, but who have been thrown on 
their own resources, are compelled to live in cheap board- 
ing or rooming houses on the average wage of $6. How 
do they exist on this sum? It is impossible to figure it 
out on a mathematical basis. If the wage were $8 a 
week and the girl paid $2.50 for her room, $1 for laundry 
and 60 cents for carfare, she would have less than 50 
cents left at the end of the week. That is, provided she 
ate 10-cent breakfasts, 15-cent luncheons and 25-cent 
dinners. But there is no doubt that many girls do live 
on even $6 and do it honestly, but we can affirm that they 
do not have nourishing food or comfortable shelter, or 
warm clothes, or any amusement, except perhaps free 
public dances, without outside help, either from charity 
in the shape of girls' clubs, or friends in the country home. 
How can she possibly exist, to say nothing of live? 

Is it any wonder that a tempted girl who receives only 
$6 a week working with her hands sells her body for $25 a 
week when she learns that there is a demand for it and 
men are willing to pay the price? On the one hand her 
employer demands honesty, faithfulness and a " clean 
and neat appearance," and for all this he contributes 
from his profits an average of $6 for every week. 

Her honesty alone is worth this inadequate wage, dis- 



30 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

regarding the consideration of her efficiency. In the sad 
life of prostitution, on the other hand, we find here the 
employer, demanding the surrender of her virtue, pays 
her an average of $25 a week. 

Which employer wins the half-starved child to his side 
in this unequal battle? It would be unjust, however, to 
cast any reflection upon those girls who are brave and 
pure by intimating that because they earn so small a 
wage they must necessarily be in the same class with those 
other girls who, unable to survive longer the heroic battle 
against poverty and self-sacrifice, have succumbed and 
gone down. 

This report was signed by the following prominent 
citizens of Chicago, including judges, employers, physi- 
cians, clergymen, educators, and sociologists : 

W. L. BAUM, M. D., REV. ALBERT EVERS, 

REV. J. G. KIRCHER, JULIUS ROSENWALD, 

DAVID BLAUSTEN, W. W. HALLAM, 

LOUIS O. KOHTZ, L. E. SCHMIDT, M. D., 

P. J. O'KEEFE, A. W. HARRIS, LL. D., 

ANNA DWYER, M. D., ELLEN M. HENROTIN, 
JUDGE HARRY OLSON, REV. E. A. KELLY, 
W. A. EVANS, M. D., JOHN L. WHITMAN, 

REV. P. J. O'CALLAGHAN, 

JUDGE M. W. PINCKNEY, 

ALEXANDER ROBERSTON, 

REV. F. W. GUNSAULUS, D. D., 

BISHOP C. T. SHAFFER, 

WILLIAM HEALY, M. D., 

EDWARD M. SKINNER, 

PROFESSOR GRAHAM TAYLOR, 

REV. ABRAM HIRSCHBERG, 



THE MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN 31 

PROFESSOR WILLIAM I. THOMAS, 
PROFESSOR C. R. HENDERSON, 
PROFESSOR H. L. WILLETT, 

Action in Illinois 

On Feb. 4, 1913, Hon. Barratt O'Hara of Chicago, who 
had been elected Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois, took his 
seat as president of the State Senate at Springfield. His 
remarks on that occasion marked the opening of the Illinois 
campaign against "white slavery " which has developed 
a nation-wide movement in favor of the living wage for 
women. He said: 

Gentlemen of the Senate — I feel ingoing into the 
office of your presiding officer it would not be inappropri- 
ate on my part to address to you a few remarks setting 
forth the policy that will guide me during the next four 
years 

In my judgment the most vital problem for this dis- 
tinguished body to solve in the interest of the people of 
Illinois, and, in a general way in the interest of the people 
of the world, is that problem that has to do with the 
chastity of our women and the sanctity of our homes. No 
observing man can have failed to notice with keen alarm 
the growth of an industry that thrives from the greed of 
men upon the purity of women. So appalling has been 
the spread of the industry of the white slave that it is 
receiving the most serious consideration of the foremost 
thinkers in all the nations of civilization and the conditions 
upon which it thrives are being studied today by govern- 
mental commissions in every nation that makes the 
slightest pretense of culture and enlightenment. 

Personally, I should favor in this State the introduction 
of this system of punishment when a man is guilty of being 
a party to the white slave industry, the institution of the 
old flogging post. I believe any man who will be so low 



32 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

as to attack the purity of woman by engaging in this 
industry should be lashed publicly as they lashed them in 
the old colonial days, and that law has recently gone into 
effect in the enlightened country of Great Britain — in 
England they now whip anyone that engages in the in- 
dustry of the white slave. 

I trust this body will begin its work by providing for a 
commission to study conditions relating to the white 
slave industry, and it is to that movement that I shall 
devote my chief energies and efforts during the next four 
years. 

These remarks by the Lieutenant Governor aroused 
great interest throughout the state. 

A Commission Appointed 

The formal resolution creating a Vice Commission 
was offered in the Illinois Senate on the same day (Feb. 4) 
by Senator Beall of the 47th District, and read as follows : 

Whereas, There is a nation-wide movement in progress 
for the purpose of extirpating the white slave traffic, so 
called; and 

Whereas, The Senate is advised that the white slave 
traffic is not yet extinct in the State of Illinois; and 

Whereas, Such traffic is a stigma upon our civilization 
and a heinous crime, that strikes at the very vitals of our 
social well-being; be it 

Resolved, By the Senate, that a committee be appointed 
to consist of the President of the Senate, as Chairman 
thereof, and four Senators, to be appointed forthwith by 
the Executive Committee of the Senate, and named by 
the President of the Senate, to investigate the subject of 
white slave traffic in Illinois; be it further 

Resolved, That such committee shall investigate the 
workings of the present statutes of our State, dealing with 
the subject of white slave traffic, and shall report such 
amendments and additions, if any, to said statutes, as 
the committee shall deem necessary and adequate in the 
premises. Be it further 



THE MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN 33 

Resolved, That such committee shall co-operate with 
bureaus or committees appointed in other states, for the 
purpose of devising a comprehensive plan for the complete 
suppression of such white slave traffic. Be it further 

Resolved j That such committee shall report its findings, 
conclusions and recommendations to this session of the 
Senate, or if not practicable, to the Senate of the Forty- 
ninth General Assembly; be it further 

Resolved, That such committee shall have the power 
to administer oaths, take evidence, subpoena witnesses, 
and compel them to testify, compel the production of 
books, papers and documents, and do any and all other 
lawful acts to carry out the foregoing purposes. Be it 
further 

Resolved, That said committee may appoint such clerks 
or investigators as it may deem necessary. Be it further 

Resolved, That such expenses connected with the fore- 
going, as shall be necessary, shall be certified by the chair- 
man of said committee and the chairman of the conting- 
ent expense committee of the Senate, and shall be payable 
out of the fund for committee expenses of the Forty-eighth 
General Assembly. 

The resolution was adopted unanimously, 35 to 0, and 
the following Senators were appointed to serve on the 
Committee with the president of the Senate, Lieutenant 
Governor Barratt O'Hara: Edmond Beall, Alton, 111.; 
Niels Juul, Chicago; F. Jeff Tossey, Toledo, 111., and 
D. T. Woodard, Benton, 111. 

The Commission began its work of investigation in 
Chicago February 28, 1913. The general trend of the 
early testimony brought the subject of the living wage 
to the front and steps were soon taken to secure the co- 
operation of other states in the enactment of remedial 
legislation. 



34 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Statement by Chairman O'Hara 

After the Commission had listened to testimony for 
two days Chairman O'Hara made the following statement 
regarding its work: 

"The investigation and suppression of white slave 
traffic has been in my mind for some years, and it was a 
matter of sentiment that caused me to begin it on the 
seventh anniversary of my wedding. One of my wife's 
bridesmaids was a Michigan girl, whose parents were 
wealthy. Her father failed and she was obliged to take 
a position in a Chicago department store at $5 a week. 
"She met a middle-aged man in the course of business, 
who took what he termed 'a fatherly interest' in her. He 
wanted to advance her money to buy better clothes and 
finally persuaded her to dine with him at a hotel. She 
consulted my wife and me about it, and we warned her of 
the danger. Fortunately she withdrew unscathed and is 
now happily married. 

"But the peril she had been placed in determined me, 
if ever I held public office, to try and stamp out such prac- 
tices, for this was one path to white slavery. 

"If at the end of two years the Illinois Commission 
can go before the legislature with a bill born of study of 
practical experiences, we will have accomplished but one- 
half of the work. It will be valueless unless we have 
succeeded in arousing public sentiment, which will demand 
the passage and enforcement of the bill. To do this we 
intend holding open sessions. 

"To most persons the term 'white slavery' has become 
something of a joke — merely a newspaper headline. I 
think our two days' testimony has shown the constant 



THE MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN 35 

peril and temptation that exists because of low wages and 
bad home environment. We have shown the existence 
of an organized industry in vice. It also has been shown 
that it is possible to effect genuine cures, and that rescued 
girls can have ambition to lead respectable lives. " 

Blames Poverty and Dance Halls 

"I think the two days' work of the commission has 
demonstrated that poverty is the underlying cause of 
white slavery," said State Senator Niels Juul, the other 
Chicago member of the Vice Commission. " Poverty and 
lack of proper home conditions drive the girls to the dance 
halls. There they become easy victims of those who can 
hold out promises of an easy life. 

"In calling on leading business men for testimony 
regarding wages paid women employees there is no in- 
tention to hound them. If the Commission can show them 
facts, I am sure they will help make conditions right. 
Most of these men have made so much wealth they are in 
a position willingly to give a helping hand. Every em- 
ployer should realize that a woman should be worth a 
sufficient wage to clothe and feed her decently and give her 
a little over for simple pleasure. Every one is entitled 
to that. 

"If the Commission doesn't do anything else but let 
in the light it will have done good. But I am sure it will 
do more than that. " 

And Professor Charles E. Merriam of the University 
of Chicago, a former candidate for Mayor, said at the 
same time: "Conditions shown before the white slave 
committee of the Illinois legislature are a standing menace 
to good citizenship. The organized vice trade set forth is 



36 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

a challenge to the decent home and the decent citizen- 
ship of our town. " 

Thousands of letters were received by the Commission 
from all parts of the country as its inquiry progressed, 
the great majority indorsing its plans and advocating a 
living wage for women as one means of relief from an in- 
tolerable moral situation. 

Opposed to a Minimum Wage 

But there were not lacking those who raised their 
voices in protest against the general application of a mini- 
mum wage. Thus John M. Glenn, Secretary of the Illinois 
Manufacturers' Association, in a talk before the Women's 
Commercial Association, said: 

"In my opinion it would be exceedingly difficult to 
make a minimum wage scale for women which could apply 
in fairness to the whole state. A scale that in a city might 
be reasonable, in a smaller town might be so exorbitant 
as to drive the manufacturer out of business. Much that 
is unjust has been said about the treatment of their help 
by manufacturers. 

"The fact of the matter is that girls leave domestic 
work and the farms and come to work in the city because 
they like the sort of work and the surroundings they find 
when at work in a big, sanitary factory. Sociologists are 
wrong when they claim the only lures of the city are its 
places of amusements and opportunity to wear gaudy 
clothes. " 

Laundrymen See Disaster 

The Laundrymen's Association of Illinois also made 
itself heard. The report of its legislative committee, 



THE MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN 37 

presented at the annual meeting of the Association 
March 17, contained the following criticism: 

"The scope of the Senate Vice Commission has broad- 
ened to such an extent that it has gone beyond its 
original mission, resulting in much hysteria and sentimen- 
tality regarding a proposition which has little to do with 
vice and which is an economic problem and should be 
treated as such. This association desires to go on record 
as favoring the creation of an industrial commission to be 
appointed by the governor to gather data and statistics 
with reference to wages and conditions under which 
women work in the various industries in the state as a 
basis for a minimum wage, if such investigation warrants 
the enactment of a minimum wage law. 

"This association is not opposed to a reasonable min- 
imum wage for women, but we do feel that a figure any- 
thing like the various amounts mentioned in the hearing 
before the vice committee would be most disastrous to 
the laundry industry. Complete data should be obtained 
before any attempt is made to settle on any figure as a 
standard minimum. 

"If a minimum wage is adopted would it be fair, for 
instance, to both employers and employees to set the same 
figure for a large city like Chicago as would be paid in 
smaller communities in the state where the cost of living 
is much less? 

"This minimum wage proposition concerns the laun- 
dry industry more vitally than any other line, for ours is 
a service commodity where it is a much more difficult 
problem to make the consumer 'pay the freight.' " 

Criticism from Women 
Under the caption, "The Girl Who Works Is Not the 
Girl Who Errs; Some Sharp Responses to Those Who 
Muck-Rake Her," the New York World has published 
articles on the subject by several well-known writers. 
Following are several extracts from these articles: 



38 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

" It seems to me to be paying a pretty poor compliment 
to the young women of this country to suggest that their 
virtue hangs upon such a slender thread that its price can 
be fixed somewhere between $6 and $8 a week," said 
Miss Jeannette Gilder. 

"To describe the kind of girl that ends on the street 
as an innocent, moral creature who falls a victim to man's 
evil passions only because she is driven to choose between 
starvation and a life of shame, is an absurd burlesque of 
the facts. 

"It is no doubt true that a certain number of innocent 
girls are led astray by men, but the number of cases must 
be very small in which a man deliberately sets out to ruin 
a girl when he sees that his first overtures are met with 
genuine disgust and aversion. " 

Sees Failure in Movement 

"Those who are seeking to express women's virtue 
in terms of dollars and cents are, no doubt, animated by 
praiseworthy motives, " said Dr. Grace Pelham Murray, 
"but whatever results their efforts may have, it is extreme- 
ly unlikely that one of them will be an improvement in 
human morals. 

"In the first place, it is a question on which it is 
impossible that a full and frank discussion of all the factors 
can be expected; in the second place, it concerns matters 
about which practically no one, male or female, will speak 
the whole truth at a public inquiry; and, finally, even if 
all the facts could be elicited it would be hopeless to look 
for any agreement as to what they meant or as to what 
ought to be done to better the conditions disclosed." 



THE MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN 39 

Wages and Morals Foreign 

"In regard to the specific point which is being so widely 
discussed, of the relation between wages and virtue," 
said Ida M. Tarbell, "it seems to me that it is a foolish 
as well as an unjust thing to try to make it appear that the 
precise economic condition of a girl fixes in any consider- 
able number of cases the state of her morality. 

"Two considerations make such a hypothesis unten- 
able. One is that there is no class of people in any civi- 
lized country in which the morality of the woman is 
higher than it is in the very poorest classes. 

"The other is that there is a good deal of evidence to 
show that there is at least as large a proportion of unmoral 
women among the moderately well-to-do, the well-to-do, 
and the rich as there is among those who are just able to 
earn a decent living. 

"After all the arguments have been advanced that can 
be advanced to prove that upon man should be placed the 
blame when women sacrifice their virtue, the plain fact 
remains that, except where violence is employed, the issue 
depends finally on the consent of the woman. 

"I do not mean to imply that a woman deliberately 
sets out to capture a man with a view to establishing any 
irregular relationship with him. What I mean is that 
many unthinking women will, whenever occasion offers, 
use their sex, consciously or unconsciously, for the pur- 
pose of gaining influence over men, and that once they 
have come to realize the power they can exert they fall 
under a strong temptation to force its exercise further and 
further for the gratification of their wishes, whether these 
lie in the direction of flattery, gifts, or matrimony. 



40 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

" Women are rarely honest with themselves about 
their attitude toward men," continued Miss Tar bell. 
"I suppose that if a woman were to go up to any one of 
the thousand girls that may be seen on Fifth avenue 
dressed in the present alluring and suggestive fashion, their 
cheeks and lips painted, and were to suggest to such a 
girl that her chief object in dressing and adorning herself 
in that fashion was to excite the emotions of the men, 
she would profess and often feel the greatest astonishment 
and indignation., 

"But if the matter is faced frankly it is precisely a 
man hunt, disguised if you will by silks and satins, by 
lingerie and lace, by the conventions of society, but none 
the less a man hunt. 

"Talk with these girls and women and they will deny 
it indignantly. They are simply dressing according to 
the fashion. " 

Refuses to be Alarmed 

Other critics declared that a minimum wage would 
lead to the wholesale discharge of girls and women from 
places now held by them, and their replacement by men. 
But even this prospect failed to create much alarm among 
the supporters of the movement. For example, the Rev. 
Melbourne P. Boynton of Lexington Avenue Baptist 
church, Chicago, in a sermon on "The Girl Below the 
Bread Line, " said it would have its advantages. 

"It is wholly desirable to remove tens of thousands of 
young girls from department stores, the offices, the fac- 
tories, and other places where they are now employed," 
he declared, "and put in their places, at a living wage, 
male help. Scarcely anything we could do would so 



THE MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN 41 

greatly promote domestic happiness and bring about such 
wholesale making of homes. 

"Such a movement would result in more marriages 
than this republic ever has seen. Young people would 
marry by the tens of thousands, for the girls allowed to 
remain at home would develop domestic instincts and 
young men, paid a living wage, would be able to make their 
own homes. 

"Any one who works the required number of hours 
during the day, or the week, should receive the legitimate 
wage for such labor, whether they are in need of the entire 
sum for living expenses or not. That is no business of 
the employer. A rich girl willing to work should receive 
full wages for services rendered. This is the only just way 
to arrange the wage question. 

"Let the semi-public corporations that are employing 
young folk be put in the limelight with the department 
store managers and the mail order houses. " 

The Movement in Washington 

Before the Illinois Vice Commission visited Washing- 
ton, as hereinafter described, President Wilson let it be 
known that he favors the principle of a minimum wage 
for working women and expects to deal with the problem 
during his administration. The Secretary of the new 
Department of Labor is charged with the development of 
the government policy on the subject, after exhaustive 
investigation and consideration. 

The president indorses a minimum wage for women, 
just as he favors an eight hour day for men, as well as 
women. He believes conditions making starvation wages 
possible should be legislated out of existence by both the 
states and the national government. 



42 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

That the states have power to enact minimum wage 
legislation is not questioned at Washington, but the general 
opinion is that jurisdiction of the federal government in 
this regard is limited. 

President Wilson contends that the suppression of 
child labor is a state function, and that the federal govern- 
ment could pass prohibitory legislation applying only to 
the District of Columbia and the employment of children 
by interstate railroads, express, telephone, and telegraph 
companies. Likewise, it is said, he is inclined to hold 
that the federal government could not go beyond this 
jurisdiction in minimum wage legislation. 

Opinions of Senators 

Senator Works of California believes congress un- 
doubtedly has the power to exclude from interstate com- 
merce any product of underpaid labor. 

"I am deeply interested in the revelations of Chicago 
conditions, " he said recently. "Sooner or later we must 
establish machinery to bring about a minimum wage for 
women, both by state and national legislation. I think 
the federal government has the power to reach the evil 
under the commerce clause of the constitution. " 

Senator Borah of Idaho, chairman of the senate com- 
mittee on education and labor, favors a minimum wage 
for women, but believes legislation of this kind is a function 
of local self-government embodied in the individual 
states. He contends federal legislation could apply only 
to the District of Columbia, and the interstate carriers. 

The exclusion of the products of underpaid labor, he 
declares, would be a perversion of the commerce clause, 
unless the nation is ready to accept John Marshall's 



THE MINIMUM WAGE CAMPAIGN 43 

view that the regulation of interstate commerce is limited 
only by the popular wish, as interpreted by congress. 

Senator Borah took issue with the statements of 
Chicago employers that they would be at a disadvantage 
under a state minimum wage law unless such law were 
uniform throughout the country. 

"As a matter of fact, I think the employers of any 
state would find a minimum wage an advantage, even if 
other states did not follow suit," he said. "The English 
employers found the eight-hour day resulted in more and 
better work, so they did not suffer from competition with 
employers who had not accepted the limitation. " 

Preparing a Bill 

Representative Peters of Massachusetts, author of the 
bill establishing an eight-hour day for women in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, said in March that he intended to in- 
troduce a minimum wage law for women when the special 
session of the 63rd Congress convened in April. 

"Anybody knows a girl trying to support herself on 
$4 or $5 a week cannot keep body and soul together unless 
she asks favors outside," he said. "The testimony 
brought out in Chicago shows this is true. The bedrock 
minimum wage should not be less than $6. " 

Mrs. Champ Clark, wife of the Speaker of the House 
of Representatives, expressed the opinion that the testi- 
mony in Chicago can be duplicated in most American 
large cities. 

"No girl can dress and support herself and mingle 
properly with her fellow beings on $4 or $5 a week, " she 
said. "It is time the government gave its attention to 
the solution of this problem. " 



44 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Wage Bill For New York 

Provisions for a "minimum wage scale" are con- 
tained in a bill which members of the Progressive party 
introduced in the legislature of the state of New York 
March 17. 

Former Senator Fredrick M. Davenport, chairman of 
the Progressive party legislative committee, said of the 
bill: 

"The measure will provide for a state minimum wage 
board of five members. The board will be authorized 
to appoint local wage boards for any industry or locality 
where wages seem below the living standard. The local 
board will be empowered to investigate, recommend, 
and report to the state board, which, after a public 
hearing, could approve, modify, or set aside the recommen- 
dations of the local boards. 

"The state board also will be authorized to issue to 
apprentices and persons handicapped by age or any 
mental or physical defect special permits or licenses for 
employment at less than the minimum rate. " 

Similar measures are now (April, 1913) pending in 
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, Ohio, and Illinois. The 
year 1913, therefore, bids fair to be distinguished by a 
wave of minimum wage legislation in the interest of the 
working woman. 



Chapter IV 

LOW WAGES AND IMMORALITY 

The Labor Bureau Report 

The report of the United States Bureau of Labor on 
the relation between low wages and immorality, which has 
been studied by the Illinois Senate Vice Commission, is, 
perhaps, the most important contribution to the literature 
extant upon the subject of immorality, its causes and 
cures, and is of particular interest in the present inquiry. 

The principal reasons girls go wrong, according to the 
report, are: 

1. Unfortunate early influences. 

2. Defective mentality. 

3. Misplaced affection. 

4. Lack of innocent amusements. 

5. The temptations lurking in the dance halls and the 
cheap theaters. 

6. Lack of proper instruction in sex physiology and 
hygiene. 

7. Character of the home. 

8. Passive neglect by parents. 

9. Crowding in tenements. 

"Do wages play no part in this matter of moral 
evil?" says the report. "The consensus of opinion was 
that as a direct and immediate cause of going wrong they 



46 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

were almost a negligible factor, that indirectly their in- 
fluence was marked and disastrous. 

4 'In the whole inquiry only one case was found in 
which the workers dealing with the girl felt that she had 
been driven into wrong because she could not live upon 
the wages she could earn. Four other cases were found in 
which the fall was directly attributable to poverty, but 
in these cases the difficulty was due not to low wages but 
to no wages at all. 

Promote Immoral Life 

"It must be observed that this relates only to the 
initial wrong step, not to becoming a habitual wrongdoer 
after the first error has been made. It was generally 
agreed that while it is the rarest of things for a girl to 
enter upon an immoral life directly through want, yet 
when she has once gone wrong through thoughtlessness 
or affection or from any other cause, then low wages or 
irregular or insufficient wages are strongly effective in 
deciding her to adopt a life of promiscuous immorality 
or in impelling her to drift into such a life without any 
definite decision. 

"When the question was shifted to the indirect effect 
of low wages and poverty the answer was very different. 
The girls were living at home in so many cases that the 
discussion necessarily dealt rather with the family income 
than with the girl's own immediate wages. Poverty, 
whether it be the result of a low family income or of in- 
sufficient wages for a girl living for herself, touches the 
question of immorality in many ways. 



LOW WAGES AND IMMORALITY 47 

Poverty Found Danger 

''Poverty decides the girl's companionships, her 
amusements, her ability to gratify without danger her 
natural and reasonable tastes, her very capacity for resist- 
ance to temptation. Its physical effects open the way to 
moral dangers. It means overcrowding and bad sanitary 
conditions and undernutrition or malnutrition and in- 
sufficient or unsuitable clothing. " 

In its inquiry the bureau of labor visited a number of 
rescue homes, refuges and asylums and interviewed a 
number of social workers whose duties brought them into 
contact with the question of immorality among women. 
It was not imagined that by these means a comprehensive 
knowledge of the situation could be gained, but it was felt 
by the investigators that an examination of opinions of 
persons having practical first-hand acquaintance with the 
subject would at least have indicative value. 

Makes Study Of Boston 

To make the inquiry systematic, immoral women were 
put into four groups, ranging from those who have not 
made a trade of vice to the professionally immoral class. 
In inquiring into the latter class the bureau obtained 
studies of 100 women living habitually immoral lives in 
Boston. 

The report says: " Among this whole group of 100 
taken from the women who have made a financial success 
of immorality, occupational influences seem to have been 
almost nil. In sixteen cases a connection would be traced, 
but in all but five the relations were merely incidental 
not causal. Want seems to have played a very small 
part in leading women astray, but to have had consider- 



48 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

able influence in keeping them in the wrong path when 
once the start had been made. 

"About one-fifth of the number had been betrayed 
and deserted and might very probably have been saved 
to a moral life had help been at hand in their hour of need. 
They do not represent the strongest type of womanhood, 
but they did not become immoral women from choice. 

Parentage Strong Factor 

"A slightly larger number came from homes which 
made virtuous living practically impossible. Some of 
these are merely weak, more are actively vicious, but all 
are the products of their parentage and environment. 

"Of the remainder, a few were moral perverts, who 
chose to go wrong in spite of excellent opportunities for 
going right, but the most were weak or vain or fond of 
excitement or indolent or easily influenced or had a taste 
for drinking, and had no strength in themselves to resist 
outside allurements. Their virtue or their vice would 
always be largely a matter of circumstance. 

"Principally these studies seem to indicate that these 
women, the more intelligent class of female wrongdoers, 
go wrong because of causes operative long before they 
enter the industrial world. Their downfall is due to moral 
causes, to their inheritance and early training, or to lack 
of training. Their entrance into the industrial world was 
not responsible for the existence of their unfortunate ten- 
dencies, and in the majority of cases it did not even furnish 
the occasion for their manifestation. " 

Wage Conditions Studied 

As to the effect of low wages in determining the moral 




GOVERNOR EDWARD F. DUNNE 

of Illinois. 

Under His Administration the Illinois Vice Commission Came Into 

Being. He Supports the Minimum Wage Idea. 




HON. MEDILL McCORMICK 

Progressive Representative in the Illinois Legislature who has 
strongly advocated the minimum wage for Women. 



LOW WAGES AND IMMORALITY 49 

delinquency of the women studied, the report gives these 
statistics : 

" Neither do low wages nor want appear as conspicu- 
ously as might have been expected. Those who had been 
waitresses received nominal wages ranging from $4 to 
$7 a week, but as board was always given in addition, and 
as tips were received ranging in value from $2 to $8 a 
week, the real wages were considerably in excess of the 
nominal. The factory workers earned from $6 to $12 
a week and in every case were living at home. The 
saleswomen received from $5 to $10 a week, the average 
being $7.15. 

"Want is a different matter from low wages, and is 
more effective among those who have not been self-sup- 
porting than among the workers. In the whole hundred 
cases there are six in which the downfall is ascribed to this 
cause. " 

Tells New York Conditions 

In investigating another group, including women who 
occasionally take to the trade of the streets, a study was 
made of thirty offenders from the redlight district of New 
York. 

The reasons assigned for their lapse are stated in the 
report as follows: 

"In looking over the records of this group one is 
struck by the incidental character of their wrongdoing. 
Apparently they are simply unskilled girls, with little 
knowledge of how to do anything well. Their work 
brings them small returns, and they are deprived of 
many of the normal pleasures of their age." 



50 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 



FIVE DOLLARS A WEEK FOR OIRLS, 

COoprtCfaU uiti Bj- Join T. WoCaukwaJ 




Mi Bullion bearing that als farodte daughter, who Is traTeUaf, Is stranded la a 



dty with only fit* dollars, 

— Chicago Tribune 



Chapter V 

THE ILLINOIS INVESTIGATION 

First Session, February 28 

At the beginning of the Illinois investigation the 
Commission appointed by the State Senate met at the 
LaSalle Hotel, Chicago. The first public session was 
held on Friday, February 28, 1913, with Lieutenant 
Governor O'Hara in the chair. The other members 
present were Senators Niels Juul of Chicago, F. Jeff 
Tossey of Toledo, and Edmond Beall, the "stork mayor" 
of Alton. Senator D. T. Woodard of Benton was un- 
avoidably absent. Other legislators in attendance were 
Senator John Dailey of Peoria and Representatives 
Frederick B. Roos of Forest Park and George A. Miller 
of Oak Park. 

The following statement made by the Chairman in- 
dicated the course of procedure that had been agreed upon: 

"From the outset the commissioners have realized the 
tremendous responsibility they were assuming, and to 
safeguard themselves against the slightest suspicion from 
the public several details of procedure were agreed on. 

" First — That all sessions — where the evidence was of 
an important nature — be made public. 



52 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

''Second — That all members of the General Assembly 
should be invited to attend any and all sessions. 

"Third — 'That the interrogation of witnesses should 
not be confined to members of the Commission, but that 
any member of either house of the legislature be privileged 
to ask any questions within the scope of the inquiry. 

"Under this arrangement it was made impossible for 
any member, or the Commission as a whole, to give im- 
munity to any witness." 

As the Commission was seeking the source of the 
"white slave" traffic, the inquiry opened with the 
narratives of several of those who had fallen and others 
who were rescued and a condensation of the testimony is 
remarkable. 

Here are some of the deductions reached through the 
day's testimony: 

Causes for Downfall 

1. Low wages, especially in stores and factories. 

2. Indifference of step-parents. 

3. Working girls' desire to dress as well as daughters 
of the wealthy. 

4. Loneliness. 

5. Promises of marriage. 

Work of Rescue 

1. Wealthy women of Chicago not only support re- 
clamation homes but take fallen girls into their homes. 

2. Ninety per cent of rescued girls are permanently 
saved. 

Proposed Remedies 

1. The whipping-post for "white slavers." 

2. A bill now before the Illinois legislature providing 
for a minimum wage for women of $12. 



THE ILLINOIS INVESTIGATION 53 

In response to a request from the girl witnesses the 
Commission decided to accept initials rather than names, 
the latter to be furnished only where prosecution of 
those responsible for their downfall was feasible. A 
number of the stories related had already been heard by a 
federal grand jury. 

Tells a Remarkable Story 

The most remarkable case brought out and the one 
that made the greatest impression on the Commissioners, 
was that of a small French-Canadian girl 15 years old, 
recorded as E. T. She had been ruined by a family friend, 
an Italian aged 20, under promise of marriage. She un- 
questioningly gave him all her earnings, yet he beat her al- 
most daily because the sum was not large enough to please 
him. Finally she was rescued and her seducer was put in 
jail. 

"The gallows would be better than the whipping-post 
for that man," commented Chairman O'Hara at the 
completion of the girl's story. 

The diminutive size of the girl, the youthful coloring 
and beauty which she had not lost, and above all, her 
naivete, made "E. T." easily the feature of the day's 
chronicle of horror. 

"I was born in Montreal and have been in Chicago 
eight years," she said in answer to questions. "It was 
on Oct. 16 that E. N. — he is 20 — took me to South Bend, 
Ind. He beat me because I wouldn't hustle for him so he 
put me in a house t'here. I gave him $35 in two weeks 
and then he was chased out of town by the Black Hand." 

" How do you know it was the Black Hand?" asked the 
incredulous legislators. 



54 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

"He told me so," said the witness, "and I saw him 
sign a paper saying he would give them money in three 
days or leave town. He couldn't raise the money and we 
came back to Chicago, November 14. He got a room for 
me on Wabash avenue, but we lived on State street. We 
were here only three days when the government men took 
me away." 

"How much of the money you got did you give him?" 
asked Senator Juul. 

"0, he got it all," responded the girl. 

"Did he abuse you?" 

"Yes; whenever there wasn't any money. That was 
nearly every day," she added, with a wan smile. 

Sold by Her Husband 

Another witness was a victim who sold herself to sup- 
port a husband. The husband first opposed and later 
acted as manager of his wife's shame. He had been sent 
to jail, charged with violating the Mann act. 

"R. H." is now 19 years of age, repentant and still 
pretty. A schoolmate in Erie, Pa., she said, caused her 
downfall. Later she went to Detroit, where she lived with 
the man now her husband. They removed to Cleveland 
and there she was taken ill. The man paid her hospital 
expenses and besought her to marry him. She did so, 
though she confessed she did not love him. They re- 
moved to Buffalo and her husband was out of work and 
they were in need. Without saying anything to him she 
sought revenue from the street. When the husband 
discovered this he at first opposed it, but finally acquiesced. 
From that time on toleration became insistence. 

The couple went to New York and then came to 



THE ILLINOIS INVESTIGATION 55 

Chicago in October, 1912. Again the man could not find 
work and again the wife sought the street for support for 
both. She met a man who took her to " Sim " Tuckhorn's, 
a notorious resort on Quincy street, for a drink. Through 

him she met the manager of the place, J — W- . The 

story of the division of her revenue astounded the legis- 
lators. 

"I did not pay the manager anything," said the girl, 
"but we understood we must take all men to the Hotel 

P , on South Fifth avenue. We were not allowed 

to order a drink at Tuckhorn's that cost less than 20 cents, 
such as creme de menthe, and we tried to get the men to 
buy wine. If a man was worth $5 to me I had to give a 
dollar to the waiter who introduced him." 

"Did your husband try to work?" Senator Juul asked. 

"No; he said I was making too much money and he 
didn't have to work," replied the girl, adding that the only 
money she gave him was sufficient for their room rent — 

also at the Hotel P and his meals. That satisfied 

him. 

Widow Escapes Trap 

A widow of about 30, who has two sons of 11 and 6 
years, next told how she had foiled an attempt to place 
her in a disorderly house. Incidentally she told of an un- 
known policeman who had found shelter for her in a police 
station and later with the New Future Association. She 
was the only witness of the day who had escaped the 
"slavers" unscathed. 

This woman, Mrs. E , lived at Water Valley, Miss., 

where she owned her home. There she met the man in 
the case, and on his promise of marriage she sold her prop- 



56 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

erty and with her sons came to Chicago Jan. 18 of this year. 
He placed them in a house on South Wabash avenue, 
despite her comments on the neighborhood. Then he dis- 
appeared. Women around the house and the noise of two 
drinking parties convinced her she should leave, and her 
resolution was strengthened when a man in the house 
forced himself on her and the landlady told her "how to 
get diamonds easy." 

Taking her children, she fled to the street a few days 
later and met the friendly policeman. Since then she had 
worked in restaurants and bakeries and intends to put her 
children in boarding school so she can earn the living for 
all. The Commission voted to send a letter of thanks 
to the policeman for saving this mother. 

Meets Tempter at Dance 

"I didn't have the nerve; it was not the life for me," 
was the explanation of her escape given by J. F., a pretty 
Canadian girl of 19. She is now working in a downtown 
office. 

This girl had been a waitress and had been sent to 
Chicago by her Canadian employers. At a dance given 
at the Dearborn club on North Clark street she met her 
tempter, a barber, and yielded. Within two days he at- 
tempted to put her in a house on Jefferson street, Gary, 
Ind. Her party consisted of two men and two women. 
The girl knew the fate she faced, but had been tempted by 
promises of $50 to $75 a week. The other woman warned 
her against the place, but praised the life, she said, and the 
commissioners were inclined to believe " white slaving" 
embraces female decoys. On their arrival at Gary the 
keen-witted landlady saw the girl's reluctance and dis- 
missed her, saying she "was not the girl for the business." 



THE ILLINOIS INVESTIGATION 57 

Tells of Rescue Work 

■ There was no question of the existence of white slavery 
in the mind of Mrs. Susan B. Adams, head of the Chicago 
Girls' Home and Rescue Mission. 

"Our home originally was the Pacific Rescue Mission 
on Federal street," said she, "but we have moved nearer 
the levee. The place, which can accommodate twenty-five 
girls at a time, is financed by wealthy Chicago women. 
We find plenty of these women are willing to place these 
rescued girls in their own households. We place nearly 
all the girls and they report to us once a week. 

"Ninety per cent of those we rescue eventually are 
saved. They are all young girls, mostly first offenders. 
In the last six years I have handled between 600 and 700 
of these cases, and I think my average is correct. All 
they need is just one chance — sometimes two. 

"The cause of their fall? Well, step-parents entered 
into many cases, especially during the last year." 

Approves Whipping-Post 

The Rev. Alice Phillips Aldrich, a regularly ordained 
Congregational minister and a worker with the Chicago 
Law and Order League, took a different view of the causes 
of girls' downfall. 

"They want to wear diamonds and fine clothes," she 
said. "The average working girl wants to dress as well 
as the millionaire's daughter. 

"I know of one girl who was sold three times in 
Chicago," concluded the minister. 

"What do you think of the whipping-post as punish- 
ment?" inquired Mr. O'Hara. 

"Fine," said the witness with enthusiasm. 



58 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Low wages in stores and factories were given as the 
chief causes for white slavery by Mrs. Josephine Schell, 
superintendent of the New Future Association, 536 East 
Thirty-seventh street. Especially is this true, she said, 
when the girls could not live at home. 



SECOND SESSION, MARCH I 

At the second session of the Commission, Saturday, 
March 1, it was determined to subpoena the heads and 
active managers of the leading department and other 
stores and factories employing many women to tell the 
Commission the wages paid by them. 

This was determined after several young women had 
said they were forced into lives of shame through inabil- 
ity to support themselves respectably and in moderate 
comfort on the salaries paid girl workers. 

One girl, Chicago born and bred — had summed up 
the amount necessary for her decent maintenance as 
$12 a week, divided as follows: 

"A room costs $2.50 a week, and board not less than 
$5, and that is not extravagant living nowadays. Then 
there is daily car fare, clothes, and books, and other 
little comforts. Twelve dollars would be the least one 
could do it on." 

Orders Subpoenas for Employers. 
"I think some of the men who operate these big 
stores and factories should tell us something about the 
conditions of the women who work for them, the salaries 
paid, and their ideas as to how a living could be ob- 
tained," observed Senator Juul. 



THE ILLINOIS INVESTIGATION 59 

"That is evidently the sense of the entire Com- 
mission," said Lieut.-Gov. Barratt O'Hara, "and the 
chairman will see that subpoenas are issued at once." 

It was agreed that wage statistics would furnish 
valuable figures in support of the bill pending at Spring- 
field for a minimum wage of $12 a week to feminine 
workers. 

Support Minimum Wage Law 
On motion of Senator Beall the Commission decided 
to order the appearance of the heads of leading depart- 
ment stores, factories, and mail order houses, not to ex- 
ceed fifteen or twenty in number, by Friday, March 7, 
and then issued this statement: 

From the testimony heard by the Commission at 
the sessions yesterday and today it appears one of the 
apparently vital causes of the industry of the " white 
slave " is the low wage paid to women workers. 

The Commission, in executive session this afternoon, 
in view of this testimony, voted to postpone all exam- 
ination of victims of the industry until full investigation 
has been made of the wage question. For this purpose 
the next meeting of the Commission was ordered called 
for Friday, March 7, at the Hotel La Salle, Chicago, at 
10 a. m. 

The Commission is deeply desirous that this meeting 
be attended by all members of the state senate and 
house of representatives who can so arrange their affairs 
as to be present. The request that all legislators en- 
deavor to be present at this meeting is especially 
prompted by the fact that a bill is at present before 
the legislature establishing $12 a week as a minimum 
wage for women workers in Illinois. 

The Commission guarantees a full and fair hearing 
to all persons interested in this subject, and earnestly 
invites the co-operation of employers and employees alike. 



60 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Woman Attacks $12 Scale 

Nearly every witness had strengthened the com- 
missioners' belief that low wages form an important 
factor in their problem. So it was something of a shock 
when one witness, Miss Mary F. Balcomb, a mission 
worker and secretary of the Young People's Civic League, 
said she was not certain of the success of the bill plac- 
ing $12 as a minimum for Illinois women workers. 

" The minimum wage proposition opens a big question," 
she said. "I think you will often find cases where a 
woman will not be worth that much. I say this knowing 
that $12 a week is as little as a woman can support her- 
self on." 

"We think a woman is worth saving regardless of the 
cost," replied Chairman O'Hara. 

Representative F. E. J. Lloyd asked if the economic 
question — the inability of a man to support a wife — did 
not enter into white slavery, and Miss Balcomb thought it 
a potent factor. 

Miss Brooks Charges Vice Ring 

Miss Virginia Brooks, the reformer known as the 
''Joan of Arc" of West Hammond, 111., was one of the 
witnesses at this session, and her recital of conditions 
in that town not only interested the commissioners, but 
also furnished them many names of divekeepers and others 
in the same business. 

Miss Brooks charged the existence of a vice "ring" 
that operated in girls between West Hammond, 111., and 
East Chicago, Indiana Harbor, Gary, and Hammond, 
Ind. She could not " see " the whipping-post as a remedy 
for "slaving" conditions, but believed enforcement of 
the law would be ample and more efficacious. 



THE ILLINOIS INVESTIGATION 61 

"I believe a man and woman of West Hammond are 
ringleaders in this traffic," declared Miss Brooks. "The 
woman is constantly seen on trains and cars between 
West Hammond and other points with young girls. It is 
largely interstate traffic, and, of course, beyond our reach, 
unless we can prove force used in the movement from 
state to state." 

The witness summed up the principal causes of girls 
in her neighborhood going wrong as two in number — im- 
proper conditions at home and low wages. 

"The girls are mostly Poles," she said, "and are mem- 
bers of large families. When young men call on them they 
do not want to entertain them in crowded sitting rooms 
or kitchens and so frequent dance halls. 

"As to wages, I have learned that most of the girls 
in this vicinity, who work at a factory in Hammond, 
receive about $4.50 weekly. I have understood the plant 
was non-union," she added in response to a question from 
Chairman O'Hara. 

Pandering in Chicago 

An early witness of the day was a Russian, initialed 
R. H. F., 27 years old, who gave some startling approxi- 
mate statistics as to pandering in Chicago. He had kept 
an ice cream parlor in the west side levee district, and 
once was arrested for pandering, two years ago. Though 
fined $1,000 and one year in jail, he escaped through a 
flaw in the indictment. He also had figured as a lecturer 
on the white slave traffic in moving picture shows until 
stopped by the police. 

He asserted there are 1,500 white panders in Chicago 
and 200 or 300 negroes, all living off the earnings of women, 



62 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

but not engaged in their sale. He declined to assert that 
the police were the cause of the traffic in women, but as a 
remedy suggested that "the police be on the square and 
the almighty dollar be not handed around." 

From the Detention Home 

Two girls from the State Detention Home at Geneva 
told their experiences. Both wept and asserted they had 
learned their lessons. The matron who accompanied 
them, Mrs. Anna Stevens, testified to their good conduct. 

One of them, "A. O'N.," a native of Rockford, had 
married at 15 and her parents had the ceremony annulled 
because of the character of the husband. She was sent to 
Geneva, was later released, and then drifted to Chicago 
and to a North Clark street dance hall known as the 
Dearborn. She met two Italians who took her to a house 
on Jefferson street, Gary, Ind. One of the men received 
$15 on delivery, in her presence, she said, and collected all 
her earnings. She had no money or clothes with which to 
escape. 

"I suppose I could have gone to the Gary police," 
said the girl tearfully, "but they don't pay much attention 
to those things out there." 

The girls, she said, were mostly foreigners, but those 
who ran the houses were almost invariably Jews. 

Blames Theatrical Agencies 

Secretary Arthur Burrage Farwell of the Chicago Law 
and Order League blamed theatrical agencies for many of 
the conditions and put in a plea for sex education in the 
public schools, and a law compelling the reporting of all 
contagious diseases, as remedies for the future. He did 



THE 1LLNI01S INVESTIGATION 63 

not think poverty the basic principle of white slavery, 
but rather dance halls with liquor attachments. 

"In the past the state has taken care of its wrecks, " 
he said. "Now, why not let it save its citizens from 
wreckage?' ' 

An attack on existing Juvenile Court methods was 
made by William H. Dumm of Brookfield, 111., who charged 
that children were legally torn from poor parents and 
hawked about by alleged uplift societies. In the case of 
girls, he insisted, this method contributed greatly to de- 
linquency and eventually to white slavery. 

The above preliminary testimony is reproduced to 
show the steps that led up to the investigation of the wage 
problem as all-important. 







HON. BARRATT O'HARA 

Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois and Chairman of the State Sena- 
torial Commission that has aroused Public Interest, as 
never before, in the question of a Living 
Wage for Women. 




■■ :s *ll 'ill 



. 




HON. EARL BREWER 

Governor of Mississippi 

Who supports the Idea of a Minimum Wage Commensurate 

with Decent Living. 



Chapter VI 

DATA GIVEN BY EMPLOYERS 

In order that the testimony given before the Illinois 
Vice Commission by Chicago employers of women may 
be readily compared and analyzed, a synopsis of their 
evidence on March 7 and 8, 1913, is given below. Further 
details of their statements on the witness stand are pre- 
sented in following chapters. 

Summary of Evidence 

JULIUS ROSENWALD, president of Sears, Roebuck 
& Co.: 

This mail order firm employs 4,782 women, at an 
average wage of $9.12 weekly. 

The minimum weekly wage scale is: $5 juvenile, $7 
intermediate, and $8 adult. The highest wage, outside 
department heads, is $35, and but twenty-three women 
receive $21 and over. Some women receive $2,100 to 
$3000. 

Those receiving less than $8 number 1,465, of whom 
119, between 15 and 163^ years of age, receive $5 for 
first three months, then $5.50. 

There is practically no connection, in Mr. Rosenwald's 
view, between the low wages and immorality. Home 
environment or lack of it, is the chief cause of women's 



66 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

downfall, and low wages is "the easiest thing to blame 
it on." 

For a girl who lives at home $5 a week is sufficient. A 
girl of 21 years can live on $8 a week and remain honest. 

Sears, Roebuck & Co.'s profits in 1911 were approxi- 
mately $7,000,000. The company could have applied 
$2,000,000 on increased salaries and still have paid 7 per 
cent interest on preferred and common stock. At the 
close of the fiscal year of 1912 there was a surplus of 
$12,000,000. Company capitalized at $50,000,000 and 
pays about 16 per cent. 

About 1,000 women employees have savings accounts 
and a " goodly number" are stockholders in the company. 

Heard company's employment manager testify that 
an investigation two years ago had determined $8 as the 
weekly minimum wage sufficient to keep a woman decently 
but could not definitely recall having heard of it until a 
few days before. 

Girls hired at $8, or not at all, if dependent on own 
efforts. 

EDWIN F. MANDEL, president Mandel Brothers: 

The store employs 1,866 women at an average wage of 
$9.86 — not including buyers, heads of departments, and 
assistants. The highest wage is $35 weekly. 

Eight girls between 14 and 15 receive $3 to $5, all 
living at home. Fifty-two get $4 to $5 and at 16 years of 
age are automatically raised to $6. 

A living wage, if the girl lives at home, is a minimum 
of $6; if dependent on salary, $9. 

Never heard of floorwalkers being " white slave" 
agents or attempting girls' ruin, or of asking candidates 



DATA GIVEN BY EMPLOYERS 67 

if they hadn't a "gentleman friend" to make up salary 
deficit. Would welcome such complaints and investi- 
gate them. 

Believes $12 too high for legal minimum wage. Prefers 
own system and would start saleswomen at $7.50. 

JAMES SIMPSON, vice-president Marshall Field & Co.: 

The store employs 4,222 girls and women regularly in 
the retail department at eight hours a day, and 440 others 
at shorter hours, such as waitresses and those who relieve 
regulars at lunch hours. 

None receives less than $5, except irregulars, who make 
at lea&t $4. 

The full average wage is $10.76, and the average of the 
1,895 who sell merchandise (exclusive of department heads) 
is $12.33. 

Has heard that $8 is lowest wage a woman living out 
of home should receive, and admitted $5 would not clothe, 
feed, and house. 

Believes infinitesimal percentage of women " go wrong " 
for monetary reasons. 

A state minimum wage law would make it impossible 
for Illinois to compete with other states. A national law 
would be better. 

Declined to state net profits, dividends, value of build- 
ings or stock of Marshall Field & Co., until legally advised. 

Later agreed that Commission might examine the 
company's books. Admitted capital stock to be 
$6,000,000. 

This firm is well able to afford and can and will pay 
any minimum wage adopted by Illinois or the United 
States, but would prefer not to make its profits public. 



68 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

First said the public might have to bear increased cost to 
offset increased wages, and later admitted the profits 
were sufficient to pay a minimum wage of $12 and make a 
profit without raising the price of goods. 

ROY M. SHAYNE, president John T. Shayne & Co.: 
This firm employs eight women at wages ranging from 

$8 to $25. 

He believes the minimum living wage would be $8 or 
$9. 

Thought wages would have some effect on a woman's 
morals. 

EDWARD HILLMAN, general manager of Hillman's 
Department Store: 

The store employs 817 women at an average weekly 
wage, not including department heads, of $8.71. In 
additioii to this there was a commission system, he said, 
by which all girls might raise their wages by industry. 
For instance, a girl paid $8 a week would be expected to 
sell $160 worth of goods. On all over that amount she 
sold she would be paid a commission of 2J^ per cent. 

He cited the following as the lowest paid girls: Forty- 
six get $5, twenty-four get $4, twenty-three get $3.50 
and six get $3. They were errand girls, he said. All had 
parents, their applications said, but Mr. Hillman promised 
to put an investigator at work at once to look up all the 
low-wage girls and see what their real home conditions 
were. He added that the firm would keep up that practice 
hereafter ; that he considered it a good idea. 

He said low wages might or might not have something 
to do with the morality of working girls. He believed 
women starve before selling their virtue. 



DATA GIVEN BY EMPLOYERS 69 

WILLIAM C. THORNE, vice-president Montgomery 
Ward & Co.: 
Profits for last year were $2,370,000. Employs 1,973 
women. Eliminating beginners, 1,140 receive an average 
of $9.25. Eliminating those receiving $15 and over, 1,098 
receive an average of $8.80. Lowest wage is $5 for be- 
ginners and $8 is minimum for girl " adrift," or self-sup- 
porting. Beginners are between 14 and 15 years old, 
and number 233, all living with parents or guardians. 
Contended a $5 wage was not placing a burden on parents, 
but relieving them to that extent. Minimum wage would 
affect hundreds of Illinois factories and cause their re- 
moval to Wisconsin and Indiana, as they couldn't compete 
with the east. Predicted half the women workers in 
Illinois, including his plant, would be out of work, and men 
would take their places. Doubted if the girl witnesses 
had told the Commission all of their stories regarding low 
wages and immorality. Asserted his firm did more for 
employees than any firm in state. 

JOHN T. PIRIE, JR., partner in Carson Pirie Scott 
& Co.: 

Employs 2,004 women, receiving an average of about 
$10, excluding heads of departments, etc. Lowest wages 
are to waitresses and errand girls, $4. Slight connection 
between wages and moral standard. Conscience would 
hurt if he knew that one of his employees had fallen be- 
cause she was not getting a living wage. Could have had 
a minimum wage of $12 and made a profit. 

EDWARD J. LEHMANN, vice-president The Fair: 

Declined to tell earnings as being "of no interest to the 



70 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

public to know." Declined to answer yes or no — when 
asked if the State street merchants had arranged not to 
tell their profits to the commission. Employs 1,750 
women, of whom 55 per cent are juveniles under 16 
and getting S3 to $4.50, and 1,131 receive less than $8. 
Could make $8 the minimum and pay 6 per cent on in- 
vestment if men were not also increased. No connection 
between wages and immorality or honesty. A good girl 
receiving $4 is as well fortified as one receiving $8. 

HENRY C. SCHWAB, vice-president and secretary 
Rothschild & Co.: 

Employs 1,154 women, receiving as low as $3. Ten 
per cent receive less than $5. Admitted there had "been 
some little discussion " about the merchants not giving 
their profit totals. Denied he was competent to pass on 
minimum living wage, and was asked to bring some 
specific statistics. 

ALBERT ELLINGER, merchandise manager Boston 
Store : 
Admitted profits to be within range of $1,000,000 
yearly. Employs 1,165 women at wages ranging from S3 
to $5,000. Thinks this firm pays highest wages to women 
of any department store in the United States. Said his 
employees— not the $5,000 type— had $1,000,000 in sav- 
ings banks. 

GEORGE LYTTON, vice-president and treasurer The 

Hub, Henry C. Lytton & Sons : 

Employs 175 women with minimum wage of $6.50 

paid to fifty-four. Has considered for some time making 

the minimum $8. Firm has system whereby each employee 



DATA GIVEN BY EMPLOYERS 71 

gets a percentage on annual salary, starting at 2 per cent 
and increasing at rate of one-half and 1 per cent for ad- 
ditional years. Cited instance of cashier at $25 a week 
who received $500 last Christmas. Could pay a minimum 
of $2 a day and make a profit without raising prices and 
believed any similar concern could do the same. Would 
have to consult firm members before volunteering minimum 
of $8 weekly. 

JOSEPH BASCH, second vice president Siegel, Cooper 
& Co.: 

Employs 1,250 women at an average of $8.56. Wages 
range from $3.50 for beginners to $29 for all except depart- 
ment heads, buyers, etc. Estimated that 500 employees 
received less than the general average of $8.56. Did not 
believe in any connection between wages and vice, and 
termed immorality "a state of mind." When told 90 
per cent of girl witnesses ascribed downfall to low wages, 
said they had " immoral minds. " Approved minimum 
wage law if it made allowances for apprentices. Didn't 
believe firm would go bankrupt through $12 minimum, 
but couldn't afford it so far as apprentices are concerned. 



Chapter VII 

THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 

Third Session, March 7 

Mr. Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck & 
Co., took the stand at the opening of the morning session, 
Friday, March 7, and was examined by Lieut. Gov. 
O'Hara after being sworn by Senator Juul. He had with 
him a typewritten memorandum of his pay roll statistics, 
to which he frequently referred in answering questions. 

The witness said his authority in connection with Sears, 
Roebuck & Co., included the right to hire and discharge 
employees, but that he did not exercise it. The concern 
employed 4,732 women and girls during the week ending 
March 8, with an average wage of $9.12. 

The lowest wage paid the girls, the witness said, was 
to those under 16 years, for whom the minimum is $5 for 
the first three months or less and $5.50 after that. No 
woman, declared Mr. Rosenwald, laying emphasis on the 
word woman, receives as low as $5. It might be possible 
that a girl in the employ of the concern got only $4.50 
a week, but the witness did not believe this condition ex- 
isted. 

Says 1 19 Girls Get $5 a Week 

The witness said there were 119 girls under 163^ re- 
ceiving $5 a week and 1,465 earning less than $8 a week. 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 73 

Practically all of the 1,465 are living with their parents. 
Mr. Rosenwald declared the concern made it a point not 
to hire girls not living at home at less than $8 a week. 

So far as the witness knew, no investigation was made 
immediately of the statements of an applicant for a position 
that she lived with her parents. These were verified later, 
he saic[. 

At this point the witness was asked concerning his 
connection with the Chicago Vice Commission. He said 
he was a member and attended most of the sessions. He 
knew the committee made recommendations on the wage 
question, but could not tell what they were. He did not 
know if the wages of women had been increased as a result 
of the recommendation. 

Chance for Advancement 

Turning again to the question of wages, Mr. Rosen- 
wald said the pay of girl employees over 16J^ years old 
ranged from $8 to $21 a week. Women who acted as 
department heads, he declared, get as high as $3,000 a 
year. 

It is entirely possible, the witness said, for a girl to 
enter the employ of Sears, Roebuck & Co., at $5 a week 
and work up to become head of a department at $3,000 
a year. 

Mr. Rosenwald was asked if Sears, Roebuck & Co., 
four years ago, made an investigation of women's wages. 
He said the concern had not, that he knew of. Then the 
witness referred the question to George H. Miller, an 
official of the company, who was sworn. Mr. Miller said 
a board of five members made an investigation; arrived 
at the conclusion $8 was a living wage, and so reported. 

Mr. Rosenwald said he knew nothing of that report 



74 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

at the time, but had heard of it three or four days before. 
He declared the $8 minimum was meant to apply only to 
girls " adrift" — not living at home. 

Vice and Low Wages Distinct 

At this point Lieut. Gov. O'Hara asked this question : 

"Now, Mr. Rosenwald, you are a public spirited 
citizen and a benefactor widely known; do you think 
low wages have anything at all to do with the immorality 
of women?" 

"I would say there was practically no connection be- 
tween low wages and prostitution," replied the witness. 

Mr. Rosenwald said he was a director of the American 
Vigilance association until it was disbanded two or three 
weeks before. He did not recall knowing any William 
Burgess, and said he knew nothing of any letter sent the 
chairman of the senatorial committee on the stationery 
of the Vigilance association, suggesting the committee was 
on the wrong track and that wages had nothing to do with 
vice or crime. 

"Do you believe ' self-preservation' is the first law of 
nature?" asked the lieutenant governor. 

"Yes, I do," was the response. 

Sees Crime and Want Linked 

"Do you believe that crime to any extent is caused by 
want?" was the next question. 

"Yes." 

"Do you think a girl who gets $9 a week and finds it 
costs her $10 for the actual necessities of life is as well 
qualified to resist the lure of a white slaver as a girl who 
gets $12 a week and finds that only $10 is actually neces- 
sary to live?" 

" I don't believe there is any connection between wages 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 75 

and prostitution. I believe most of the girls who come 
from the proper home environment and become prostitutes 
are just as likely to fall at $8 up or $8 down as $10 up or 
$10 down." 

"Now, Mr. Rosenwald," asked Chairman O'Hara, 
"do you think it ever has happened that a girl surrendered 
the priceless treasure of her virtue because she was starv- 
ing or her mother was starving or sick, or because of a 
crippled brother?" 

"I don't believe one case has any connection with the 
other/ ' replied Mr. Rosenwald. "A girl who gets $10 
a week is just as likely to use that as a subterfuge as a girl 
getting any other wage." 

Responsibility of Employer 

"You think, then, that the employer who pays a girl 
less than a living wage has no moral responsibility in her 
downfall?" 

"Not so far as the pay is concerned. There is no con- 
nection in my opinion," said Mr. Rosenwald. 

Q. — What would you do if you found women in your 
employ could not decently exist on the wages they re- 
ceived? A. — I should raise their wages. 

Q. — Do you think $5 is enough for any girl to live 
on? A. — If she lives at home and contributes her $5 to 
help support the family, yes. That is, if she is 16 or 
under. If she is not at home she could be honest and live 
on $8 a week. 

Q. — What were the profits of your concern for the 
last fiscal year? A. — I can't say, offhand. 

Mr. Rosenwald then referred to a financial statement 
for 1911. 

"The profits were something over $7,000,000," he said. 



76 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Q. — Could you apply a generous portion of that profit 
to the increase of wages of your employees and still pay the 
stockholders a legitimate interest on the money invested? 
A. — The question of interest is hardly applicable. The 
value of the shares is not entirely represented by the 
capital invested. 

Could Use $2,000,000 on Pay Roll 

Q.— Could you take, say, $2,000,000 of that profit 
to increase the wages of employees and still pay a fair 
dividend? A. — I could take $2,000,000 to increase wages 
and still pay some dividends. 

Q. — What dividend is your company paying now? 
A. — Seven per cent on all common and preferred stock. 

Mr. Rosenwald said the surplus of the company at 
the end of 1912 was " something like $12,000,000. ,, 

Q. — If after investigating this matter you reach the 
conclusion that the women and girls in your employ are 
not receiving enough to live on decently, will you take 
money from the surplus fund to increase their wages? 
A. — We increase the pay of employees as we believe to 
be fair and just and we shall continue to do so. 

Q. — Do you consider that you should be the only judge 
of what is fair? Do you think the state should have any 
interest in aiding you in arriving at what is fair? (These 
questions were interjected by State Senator Juul.) A. — I 
should try and meet the views of the state as nearly as 
competition would permit. 

Q. — Mr. Rosenwald, what is your personal income? 
A. — I should rather not answer that. 

Q. — Could you live on $8 a week? A. — That would 
be pretty hard to tell without trying. 

Q. — Have you ever tried? A. — No. 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 77 

Never Heard of "Drivers" 

Q. — Have you ever heard the term " drivers" used 
among your employees? A. — Not that I recall. 

Q. — What title do you give to the men and women 
who superintend the work of your women employees and 
see that they are kept busy? A. — I don't know that we 
have any such. 

Q. — What do the girls in your employ call those in 
charge of them? A. — Not being a girl I couldn't tell you. 

Mr. Rosenwald said the girls under 16 years in his 
employ worked on an average eight hours a day, and 
those over that age averaged eight and three-quarter 
hours a day. He said the maximum for any girl employee 
was nine and a quarter hours a day — well within the ten 
hour law, he pointed out. 

Mr. O'Hara read from an anonymous letter in which 
it was declared that many girls employed by Sears, Roe- 
buck & Co. were forced to work twelve hours a day — that 
the company had the girls report at 6 a. m., but that their 
time cards show 8 a. m. as the beginning time. 

"Is that true?" Mr. O'Hara asked. 

" It is not true to the best of my knowledge and belief," 
was the reply. 

At this point Mr. Rosenwald said that Sears, Roebuck 
& Co. would welcome the members of the committee if 
they desired to visit the company's place of business and 
question employees. 

Q. — You are familiar with all the departments of your 
business, are you not? A. — Yes. 

Q. — Is there a department where fine linens or fine 
cloths are handled, where the windows are kept closed? 



78 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

A. — I would say to the best of my knowledge that there is 
no such rule. On the contrary, our plant has been taken 
as the standard of ventilation by the heath department. 

Q.— i Would you say, Mr. Rosenwald, that the girl 
living at home could procure the necessary clothing, food, 
carfare and other necessaries on $5? A. — If she lives at 
home I should say she could. 

Q. — Suppose the wage of a father is $12 and the girl 
is making $5, do you think that she could receive the 
necessaries of life aside from food? A. — If living at home 
this would add very materially to her father's income. 

" I know that women who are not living at home get 
good room and board for $3.50 and $4," said Mr. Rosen- 
wald in answer to another question. 

Q. — Do you have these girls followed to their homes to 
see if the conditions are all right? A. — No, we have no 
means of knowing what the home conditions are. 

Profits of Future Unknown 

Q. — Wouldn't it be possible for a concern the size of 
yours to give 100 girls or women an increase of $5 a week 
which would be $26,000, or 1,000 girls an increase of $5 
a week, which would be $260,000 annually? A. — We have 
nothing to assure us that the profits of the concern will 
continue as large. 

Mr. Rosenwald explained that if the state of Illinois 
passed a minimum wage law, while such a law did not 
exist in other states, the business interests of Illinois would 
be materially depressed. 

In concluding his testimony at the morning session he 
said in answer to a question : 

"I have thought I made myself very plain and I have 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 79 

given this question a great deal of study. I think that 
home environment plays a large part in the question of 
vice. The wage question is the easiest and most natural 
thing for the girl to blame. 

Ideals Among Poor High 

"As my honest opinion, and I am not trying to mini- 
mize the necessity for paying girls fair wages, I do not 
think that the wage question and the vice question hinge 
materially on one another. I should say there are re- 
spectable people of high ideals among the poor who are 
just as moral and in many cases more so, than the wealthier 
class. As far as our policy is concerned we do not fight 
any legislation that will help humanity and help our 
employees." 

Girl Says "Drivers" Scolded 

E. B., a girl 17 years old, was then called to the witness 
stand and sat beside her former employer as she told of 
conditions at Sears, Roebuck & Co. 

Q. — How old were you when you started to work for 
Sears, Roebuck & Co? A. — Fourteen years and 7 months. 

Q. — Did you give your correct age? A. — I did. 

Q. — How were the girls treated? A. — They were 
scolded and many of them cried. 

Q. — What was the person called who scolded? A. — 
We called them all kinds of names. 

Q. — Was the person who scolded called the "driver?" 
A.— Yes. 

Q. — How many times did you see girls of tender years 
called before this so-called driver? A. — At least three 
times a week. 



80 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Q. — The girls were often to blame, were they not? A. — . 
The reason was very often an attempt to get too much 
work out of the girls. 

Q, — What hours did you work? A. — I worked from 
8 a. m. to 6 p. m., three days in the week and had forty 
minutes for dinner. 

Q. — Do you live with your parents? A. — Yes. 

Q. — Are you working now? A. — Yes, for the Chicago 
Telephone Company. I am receiving $9 a week and I 
get a raise every three months. 

Left Because of Scolding 

Q. — Tell the Commission in your own way the scene 
at these scoldings. A. — I left there because of one of 
these scoldings. I had worked hard all day and it was 
five minutes before quitting time. I was called up to the 
desk of the f orelady and she pounded on her desk because 
I had made two errors during the day. Every girl makes 
mistakes. I tried not to make mistakes. I was told that 
I would have to stop making errors or they would get 
somebody else in the department. All this time the fore- 
lady was pounding on the table. The next day I and 
another girl left. 

Another Tells of Harsh Words 

E. H., another former employee of the company, then 
took the witness stand and was questioned by Mr. O'Hara. 

Q. — Why did you leave your employment? A. — Be- 
cause I got a better position. 

Q. — Did you ever hear any harsh words spoken to 
girls of tender years? A. — Yes. Girls were called to the 
forelady's desk. They had to turn out so much work a 
day. Every time the girls left that desk they were crying. 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 81 

Q. — Were hands ever laid on the girls? A. — No, but 
I was threatened with the loss of my position. 

Q. — Did you have to pay for drinking water? A. — 
There was some water which we could drink, but at times 
it had a queer taste. If we wanted purer water we had 
to pay 10 cents every two weeks. 

Q. — How many of the girls were getting less than $5? 
A. — We didn't talk salaries. I understood I was getting 
more than the ordinary girl. 

Shunned Girls She Didn't Like 

Q. — Were there any bad girls that you knew? A. — I 
stayed away from the girls I did not like. 

Q. — What was the moral condition of most of the girls? 
A. — I don't know. I only associated with a couple of 
girls. 

Q. — Do you know if any of the girls had elderly beaus? 
A. — No. They almost all had beaus. 

Q. — Would you blame a girl who was receiving from $5 
to $7 a week and supporting a widowed mother, who had 
been called up before this so-called " driver" and scolded 
until she wept, if she committed a crime or if she did worse 
than kill herself? A. — No, positively no. 

" You see, Mr. Rosenwald, we have sought in this wit- 
ness to make you familiar with the conditions in your own 
establishment," said the lieutenant governor, turning to 
the head of the mail order concern. "We want your co- 
operation in bettering conditions." 

Mr. Rosenwald replied that the first witness mentioned 
conditions existing several years ago. Miss B. then said 
she had left the concern but seven months ago. 



82 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Mr. Mandel Testifies 

Mr. Edwin F. Mandel, president of Mandel Bros., 
Chicago, opened the afternoon session, assisted by his 
manager, P. J. Dunn, to whom he frequently referred. 
After he testified to the number of women employed and 
their wages as given in the summary in the preceding 
chapter, Chairman O'Hara took up the examination. 

" How do you justify the payment of such low wages?" 
was asked. 

"They are based on capability entirely/ ' was the 
answer. 

"Is your business on a paying basis?" 

"I am not at liberty to answer." 

Questioned about what constituted a "living wage," 
Mr. Mandel said all applicants signed a blank giving their 
estimate of necessary expenses, in addition to family 
particulars, and added: "The girls who are not receiving 
sufficient to live on come to us. There are many instances 
of such receiving an increase." 

The witness admitted it would not be a serious handicap 
to the business to raise all girls to a minimum of $6. 

"Then why is it not done?" asked Chairman O'Hara. 

"A little errand girl, just starting out, is not worth 
more," was the response. 

Wage No Factor in Immorality 
Mr. Mandel told of social welfare workers employed 
by his firm and admitted as a proprietor feeling a re- 
sponsibility for the future of his employees. 

"Has the wage anything to do with the morality of a 
woman?" was the next question. 

"I don't think so," was the response. 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 83 

"Have you ever received complaints that floorwalkers 
if not white slave agents, are working to ruin girls for them- 
selves?" 

"I never heard of such a case." 

"We have all heard of cases, Mr. Mandel, where girls 
applying for department store positions have been told 
they would receive $4 or $5 a week. When they said they 
could not live on that they were asked if they hadn't a 
'gentleman friend.' " 

Mr. Mandel and Mr. Dunn replied they had not heard 
of any such cases. 

Blames Moral Environment 

"Do you believe moral environment rather than wages 
causes the downfall of so many girls?" Mr. Mandel was 
asked. 

"Largely." 

"You will admit the home environment depends 
largely on the money that goes to the upkeep?" 

"Yes." 

Commenting on the witness's statement that a girl's 
estimate of her expenses was part of her application, Chair- 
man O'Hara said he thought the weakness lay in the girl, 
who would not tell all the truth in order to assure herself- 
of a job. 

Mr. Mandel said they took the applications at face 
value and did not investigate. 

"Wouldn't you be willing to make an appropriation to 
investigate the girls' applications?" was asked. 

"Yes," said the witness. 

"And if they were not correct you would not hire 
them?" 



84 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

"I didn't say that." 

"If you found a girl could not live on less than $12 
weekly would you voluntarily establish a new scale?" 

" I haven't the authority." 

Believes $9 a Living Wage 

"Is it possible for a woman to pay for her clothes, 
room, food, and car fare on what you offer?" asked Senator 
Juul. 

"Yes, at $9." 

On Senator Juul's insistence Mr. Mandel took pencil 
and paper, and with many questionings made out a table 
of what expenditures he thought would be necessary for a 
woman each week. It finally resulted as follows: 

Clothes, including shoes * . $1 . 00 

Laundry 25 

Room and board 4 . 00 

Car fare 60 

Lunch 70 

Church . . . 10 

Sickness, dentist, and other emergencies 1 .25 

Total ...$7.90 

"I wish I could make my wife believe that," ex- 
claimed Senator Juul as he surveyed the total. 

Mr. Mandel testified that employees were paid half 
time during sickness, averaged 317 working days annually, 
were not laid off after the holiday rush, and received two 
weeks' vacation at full pay. 

Domestic Service as Recourse 

"If a woman cannot live on your wages, what would 
be the straightest road she would take to make up the 
difference?" inquired the senator. 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 85 

"She ought to go into a home as a domestic rather 
than the other course,' ' replied Mr. Mandel. 

"Do you think low wages adds to the recruits to vice 
in Illinois? ,, 

"No," replied the witness. 

"In that employers and employees differ greatly," ob- 
served Senator Juul. 

Mr. Mandel spoke of competition as being one reason 
for inability to increase wages, and his interrogator figured 
for a while and then asked: 

"Would the payment of $26,000 to lift some of these 
girls out of need prevent you from going ahead and com- 
peting with the other houses?" 

"No." 

Refers to Apprentice System 

"Under the old system," said Mr. Juul, "the master 
never took an apprentice without giving him his bed and 
board, and often medical attendance, if he were ill. Times 
have changed, but does this condition still exist morally?" 

"Yes." 

Senator Beall spoke of the bill introduced by him in the 
senate providing for a minimum wage of $2 a day for 
women and asked Mr. MandeFs opinion. 

"It is too high," was the reply. "I recommend our 
system." 

In reply to an inquiry by Senator Tossey, the witness 
said he employed selling and non-selling help. Pressed 
for a comparison between men and women workers, he 
said salesmen received about $14 a week and porters $12. 
In many instances the woman could not handle, 
physically, the goods salesmen were assigned to. 



86 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

In closing Chairman O'Hara congratulated Mr. Mandel 
on having an "open door" policy so far as complaints by 
women against men employees were concerned. 

Conditions at Marshall Field & Co.'s 

Mr. James Simpson, vice-president of Marshall Field 
& Co., was the next witness. Chairman O'Hara plunged 
into the " living wage" at once and asked Mr. Simpson's 
opinion. 

"I have not investigated closely myself," was the 
answer, "but I have heard it asserted by good authorities 
that $8 was about right." 

The witness then cited the number of women employees 
in the retail departments as 4,222, regularly employed at 
eight hours' work. There were 440 at three and one-half 
to four hours a day, he said, most being waitresses in the 
restaurants and tea rooms. There also was a force that 
relieved the saleswomen from 11:30 a. m. to 3:30 p. m., 
during lunch hours. Ninety per cent in these two classes 
were young married women earning some extra money, 
and girls who were in Chicago to study music or other 
things and were not wholly dependent on their earnings. 
They were paid at the rate of $8 and had a minimum earn- 
ing power of $4. 

"There are also twenty girls in the millinery school, 
said he. "They are there but a few hours and are really 
learning the trade." 

Field's General Average $10.76 

Mr. Simpson gave the total of merchandise saleswomen 
as 1,895, exclusive of section heads, at an average of 
$12.33, of whom 213, from 16 to 18 years, received $5 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 87 

weekly. The general average wage for girls and women 
was $10.76. There also were six welfare workers, he said, 
who did nothing else and often went into the employees' 
homes. 

"These boys and girls are going to school, as it were," 
said Mr. Simpson in referring to small wages. "I do not 
think it is fair for you to say the difference between their 
wages and those not living at home is putting a burden 
on the parents' shoulders. They are getting all they are 
worth, and they are preparing for greater earning power." 

" Suppose a girl goes wrong while getting only $5 a 
week?" suggested Senator Juul. 

"An infinitesimal percentage of women go wrong the 
first time for monetary reasons, in my belief," replied 
Mr. Simpson. 

The witness then discussed the competition in the de- 
partment store business. 

Calls Matter of Wages Competitive 

"This matter of wages is entirely a competitive 
matter," said he. "I don't believe there is as keen a 
competitive spot in the world as State street. No house 
can get far away from its competitors, and no one can 
get far away in principle from Milwaukee avenue. 

"A minimum wage law," he continued, "would make 
it impossible for Illinois to compete with the other states. 
In my opinion, such a move must be national." 

"But we must make a start," expostulated Senator 
Juul. 

"Well, Washington is a good place to begin," said Mr. 
Simpson. 

"What were the net profits of Marshall Field & Co. 
last year?" inquired the lieutenant governor. 



88 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

"I do not care to answer that without legal advice. 
It is a private corporation and the public does not hold 
any of the stock. 

"Do you refuse to give us the figures, Mr. Simpson?" 
persisted the chairman. 

"Yes." 

Again Declines to Answer 

"Were the profits in excess of $1,000,000?" 

Mr. Simpson again declined to answer. 

"Do most of the profits remain in Chicago or Illinois?" 

"Yes." 

"Are there any large stockholders not residing in 
Illinois or the United States?" 

"One, Joseph N. Field of Manchester, England." 

"What profits did he receive last year?" 

"I do not care to answer that, but it was a small 
portion." 

Mr. Simpson and Senator Juul then had a debate 
over the latter's expression of "the starvation line." 

"What were your firm's dividends last year?" asked 
Chairman O'Hara. 

" I refuse to answer that." 

"Has your firm ever taken a stand against union 
labor?" 

"We employ both union and nonunion labor." 

Says 1,035 Get Less Than $8 

Reverting to wage standards Mr. Simpson said there 
were 163 women over 18 years receiving a minimum of $6, 
and the total of those getting less than $8 was 1,035. 

Chairman O'Hara had the senate resolution authoriz- 
ing the commission read, and again invited Mr. Simpson 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 89 

to answer his financial question. The request was refused 
on the same grounds. 

[Next day, however, Chairman O'Hara announced 
that Marshall Field & Co. had agreed to turn over all their 
books to the commission. James Simpson, vice-president 
of the company, at once stepped forward and said he 
wanted to qualify the announcement by stating the com- 
mission might examine the books but "only so far as they 
may have a bearing on this subject.' ' 

"I am only speaking for myself personally and not the 
commission," said Mr. O'Hara, "when I say I do not 
want this information unless it can be shown to all the 
people of Illinois."] 

Senator Johann Waage, who was present, elicited the 
information that the Field firm was capitalized at $6,- 
000,000. 

Mr. Simpson said he knew the commission was engaged 
in a laudable work and that his firm wanted to assist. 

"Will you assist by raising your scale of wage?" in- 
quired Mr. O'Hara. 

"If the others do — yes," was the reply. 

Mr. Simpson closed with a statement in which he said 
his retail store closed at 1 p. m. Saturdays, gave two weeks' 
vacation to those employed a year or more, and one week 
to others. Half pay is given the sick and in many cases 
full pay. Full time is allowed if employees have to see 
physicians or dentists. 

A trained nurse is always at the store and free beds 
are maintained for needy employees at St. Luke's and the 
Presbyterian hospitals. Lunches cost employees 10 or 11 
cents. A school is held for the junior help, the course 



90 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

being compulsory and consisting of arithmetic, grammar, 
spelling and penmanship, which are taught one hour daily 
until the pupils arrive at high school standard. The firm 
also has a branch of the city public library, a music room, 
and is building a gymnasium, the witness said. 

Figures $8 to $9 as Living Wage 

President Roy M. Shayne of John T. Shayne & Co., 
furriers, testified he had but eight women in his employ, 
who received $8 to $25 weekly. 

"Do you believe low wages have some effect on 
women's morals?" he was asked, and replied in the af- 
firmative. He said he thought a living wage would be 
$8 or $9 weekly. 

While these witnesses were testifying the Commission's 
investigator, M. Blair Coan, took two deputy sheriffs 
and raided a house at 2101 Dearborn street known as 
the Casino hotel and cafe. 

Six women, including the head of the establishment, 
were subpoenaed and taken directly to the La Salle hotel. 
Each asserted her downfall came from insufficient wages 
to live honestly. 

Before the taking of this testimony Mr. O'Hara warned 
the hundred-odd women present of its nature and invited 
any wishing to withdraw. All remained. 

Stories of Women Taken in Raid 
"A. R.," 38 years old, said she had worked in a laundry 
at $4 a week and supported a son and daughter. She gave 
up the struggle at 24 years and had continued to support 
her children, but had sent them to another city. 

"P. B.,' J 23 years old, had worked in shoe factories in 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 91 

Portsmouth and Cincinnati until four years ago from the 
time she was 14 years old. She got $5 a week. 

"R. A.," 22 years old, said she had earned $3 a week 
since she was 16 in a St. Louis paper factory. When she 
was 20 she could not earn enough to assist her parents and 
took the shadowy life. She told the commission she would 
willingly return to her former life if she could earn $12 a 
week. 

"L. C," 21 years old, an orphan, had been a telephone 
operator in Cleveland and for the Toledo Home Telephone 
company at from $16 to $20 a month as a beginner. She 
gave it up two years ago, but denied being brought to 
Chicago as a " white slave." 

"R. R." is now 26 years and until seven years ago 
tried work as a domestic and worked in stores and factories 
in St. Louis. The average was $4.50 a week, she said. 

"I. H.," proprietor of the house, said she was 23 and 
a native of Grand Rapids. She had done housework 
between the ages of 10 and 17, working from 5 a. m. to 
8 p. m. She denied knowledge of " white slave" traffic. 

Another woman witness was heard in executive session 
at noon, and the details of her story convinced the com- 
missioners of the menace that lay in the spread of disease. 

"The Commission is trying to remedy conditions," 
said Chairman O'Hara at the close of the session, "not to 
ridicule or censure individuals. "The only remedy is the 
forcing of large employers of labor to make public all facts 
regarding woman labor, and also the forcing of employees 
to make public not only all the facts about their employers 
but about their home lives as well." 



92 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

FOURTH SESSION, MARCH 8 

Mr. Edward Hillman, manager of Hillman's, one of 
the large State street department stores, was the first 
witness before the Commission at the session of Saturday, 
March 8. 

He said the morals of women employees and the 
question of low wages might be connected in certain in- 
stances and not in others. He was emphatic in his state- 
ment that he felt a moral responsibility for the condition 
of the girls employed. The lowest wages paid bj r Hillman's 
was $3 to errand girls. The highest salary paid women, 
not department heads, was $30 a week. He thought a 
minimum "living wage" should be about $9 a week. 

The witness declared that his office door is always open 
for the complaints of girls. He pointed out that the old- 
fashioned days when the head of a firm directed the busi- 
ness from a desk are past. He said he was about the store 
most of the time and personally watched over the women 
and girls and the conditions surrounding them. 

Mr. Hillman testified that seven floorwalkers had been 
discharged by his firm for attempting to exert an evil 
influence over the girls. Other State street stores were 
at once warned of these men and a check to their activities 
in the loop district was placed in this manner. 

Girls Never Blacklisted 

No matter for what a girl is discharged, Mr. Hillman 
declared, she never is blacklisted or boycotted among 
State street stores. 

The witness said he would at once have an investigation 
made of the home conditions of the lower priced girls in 
the employ of Hillman's. He declared he started work at 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 93 

$2 and his present partner was his former employer. He 
pointed out that the Hillman store has a system of com- 
missions by which the saleswomen who are capable can 
earn considerably more than their salaries. 

Mr. Hillman promised to co-operate with the commis- 
sion in its efforts to better conditions among the working 
women and secure a minimum wage law. He refused to 
state the profits of his concern until he had talked with 
his counsel. 

"Mr. Hillman, do you connect low wages with im- 
morality among women?" asked Chairman O'Hara. 

"In some cases I might and in others I might not." 

"Suppose a girl is getting $8 a week and it costs her 
$10 to live on the bare necessities of life. Is she well 
fortified to resist temptation?' ' 

"Yes, I think so." 

"There are women who would starve before yielding 
to temptation?" suggested the chairman. 

"Yes, absolutely," replied the witness. 

"And there are women who would go wrong before they 
would starve?" 

"Yes, there are." 

Average Wage Paid 

Mr. Hillman said he employed 817 women. The 
average wage paid is $8.71. He explained the commission 
system by which a saleswoman who may be earning only 
$8 a week gets 2J^ per cent on what she sells over $160 
worth of goods. If she sells less than $160 worth she gets 
only her guaranteed salary. 

The witness said girls getting only $6 a week salary 
often earn as high as $16 a week by means of the commis- 



94 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

sion system. In addition to this he told of a method of 
adding to the girl's wage and the firm's business by pay- 
ing the* saleswoman, for example, 1 cent on each yard of 
remnants disposed of. 

"Do the girls get a scolding if they fail to sell a certain 
amount of goods?" the lieutenant governor asked. 

"Absolutely never," replied Mr. Hillman. 

Wages of Girls Under 16 

The witness said out of the 817 women and girls em- 
ployed in his store 99 were under 16 years of age. The 
number and wages of the latter are: Six at S3, 23 at $3.50, 
24 at $4, and 46 at $5. 

Mr. Hillman said further there are 150 saleswomen 
who earn between $6 and $7 a week. All of these, he de- 
clared, live at home or with relatives. 

"The $3 girls are used to run errands about the store," 
explained the witness. "They are mostly brought in 
by their mothers or fathers and rarely are taken on except 
at the request of their parents." 

"As an employer of these girls do you feel you have any 
moral responsibility for their welfare?" was asked. 

"Yes, sir, I do," responded the witness. "We have 
women who go around to these girls and watch over them. 
We have women doctors who go floor by floor and see all 
the girls daily. They report to me direct." 

"If you found a girl working at $3 a week and dis- 
covered she had lost her virtue as a result of low wages 
would you as a man feel the pangs of conscience?" asked 
the lieutenant governor. 

Mr. Hillman paused as if considering. 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 95 

"Accident of Life or Business" 

" Perhaps you would consider it one of the accidents of 
life or business/ ' suggested the questioner. 

"That's it exactly," replied the witness. 

Mr. Hillman then told of one girl who started at $3 
who now is earning $27 as assistant cashier. She is 27 
and has been with the firm nine years. 

"It is impossible for a girl to be kept back if she is 
worthy of going ahead or wants to go ahead," the witness 
continued. " I am around every day. I am a good judge 
of girls and I know when one is a good saleswoman or not. 
She could come to me any time with a complaint. Some- 
times two or three girls a day come. Other days no one 
appears." 

"How many floorwalkers have you discharged for 
charges made by girls?" 

"About seven, I should think. The name is given to 
the other State street stores so he can't take advantage 
of any girls in other stores." 

Competition for Employees Keen 
Mr. Hillman declared the competition for employees is 
keen. He said girls constantly are changing, seeking to 
better themselves. The witness declared this competition 
is increasing the store pay rolls. He said a girl seeking a 
position signs an application blank telling what wages 
she expects to receive, but no attempt is made to look into 
the home life or environment of the applicant. 

"Did it ever occur to you that you might fulfill part 
of your moral obligations to these girls by following up 
this line of investigation?" said Chairman O'Hara. " Will 
you tell the commission you will look into this?" 



96 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

" That is a good idea," replied the witness. " You bet 
I will." 

Mr. Hillman then told of being a " self-made man " and 
of walking to work and carrying his lunch. 

Figures on Living Wage 

"Now forget you are an employer of 817 girls and 
women," suggested the chairman. "Look at this from 
the standpoint of the girl who is working for $3 to $5 a 
week. What, would you say, is the least amount on which 
a girl can support herself in Chicago if dependent on her 
own resources?" 

"About $8 or $9 a week." 

"Could she do it for $8?" ' 

"Perhaps so." 

"Would she have any money for harmless amuse- 
ments?" 

"Say, you're right. She wouldn't have a whole lot. 
That's pretty low. But she could do it fine on $12 a 
week. I could live on$12or$10a week if I had to. I 
guess $8 or $9 would be all right, however." 

Mr. Hillman then promised to give the commission 
a list of 150 girls earning between $6 and $7 a week. The 
lieutenant governor said the commission would investi- 
gate their home conditions. 

Says Poverty Might Bring Downfall 
The witness said he never had given the matter of 

what the girls would have to pay for room and board a 

thought. He declared it might be $6 or perhaps as low 

as $4 a week. 

"Do you think the lack of funds makes a girl go 

wrong?" 




HON. S. V. STEWART 

Governor of Montana 

Who says: "Recent investigations tend to make firmer my 

advocacy of a minimum wage for working women." 




GOVERNOR FRANCIS E. McGOVERN 

of Wisconsin 

Who in a message to the Legislature January 9, 1913, said: 

"We should have a carefully-drawn law fixing 

a minimum wage for women." 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 97 

"It might," he replied. 

Tells of the Store Policy 

Mr. Hillraan then told of his policy in operating his 
store. 

"I have a motto in my office, 'Go or grow/ " he said. 
"I've been through the mill and I know what it is. I al- 
ways am glad to advance any girl that is capable and 
deserves it. She is better than the outside girl; if she 
were not we wouldn't try to make them good." 

State Representative F. E. J. Lloyd asked Mr. Hillman 
if he knew it was common knowledge that a large number 
of department store girls were reported to lead immoral 
lives. He replied it never had come to his notice. 

" Instead I believe department stores take more interest 
in their help than do any other employers of labor," he 
said. "We have men and women detectives watching for 
* mashers/ One got such a thrashing by a house detective 
yesterday that I actually was sorry for him. He got 
more than was coming to him. The moral standard of our 
girls and women is of the highest. Why don't one of you 
come around and look them over? You are all good 
judges." 

Senator Beall promptly accepted the invitation. 

Mr. Hillman denied that he had contributed to a fund 
to fight the minimum wage law. 

Mr. Glenn on the Stand 

John Mack Glenn then took the stand. He is secre- 
tary of the Illinois Manufacturers' association and owns 
the Manufacturers' News. 

He admitted that the members of the Illinois Manu- 



98 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

facturers' Association were somewhat "nervous" over 
prospective results of the present investigation. He de- 
clared the lieutenant governor's statement that there 
were 50,000 girls and women in the city working for $5 
a week or less was not true. He said the census gave the 
total number of women wage earners above 16 years of 
age in Chicago as 57,000. 

The witness declared the wage question the least 
factor in the question of morality among working girls. 
He said he thought the commission was on the wrong 
track and that many other factors entered into the situa- 
tion. 

In executive session the Commission took up the case 
of E. R. F., a young girl, aged' 16, whose death as the 
result of an operation had been reported the day before. 

The girl had been employed as a " dipper" in a candy 
factory. She was paid $2 a week and " had to contribute 
something toward the support of her mother." A girl 
friend took her to "Dreamland," a large dance hall, 
"and now," said a chronicle of the proceedings, "the 
coroner is seeking to fix the blame for her death." 

Senators Visit Hillman's 

After the session Senators Beall and Juul visited the 
Hillman store. 

"I have made arrangements to have a trained in- 
vestigator go to work at once to prepare a report on the 
home conditions of the girls in our store," said Mr. Hill- 
man. "Furthermore, I am having prepared a report to 
be submitted to the commission containing the names of 
every girl on our pay rolls who receives less than $7 a 
week. If the commission wants our investigator to look 
into the home affairs of our girls making that sum or less 



THE TESTIMONY IN DETAIL 99 

to find out if they really live at home, as stated in their 
application blanks, we will do so. At any rate, any new 
girls, applying for the positions which pay less than $7, 
will be looked up by our investigator, and if it is found 
that they do not live at home they will not be employed 
in such position. 

Move a Good One 

"I think I realize that such a move on the part of a 
department store is an innovation, but in the light that the 
matter has been presented by the commission I believe 
that it is an innovation of a highly beneficial character 
and I am for it enthusiastically. I want to have the girls 
in this store the most contented set of employees in town, 
and I want to help the commission at every angle in learn- 
ing the best methods to make the girls know my stand." 

The news of a similar move on the part of Man del 
Brothers came in a letter addressed to the commission, 
signed by Edwin F. Mandel. The letter stated that an 
investigator would be started at work at once to look into 
the home conditions of the girls employed at Mandel 
Brothers' store, his work to be supplemented by the work 
of the matron now employed at the store. The letter 
also contained a paragraph telling of an increased mini- 
mum wage to be installed by Mandel Brothers. 

"We are exceedingly pleased with these evidences of 
the co-operation on the part of at least part of the store 
owners to supplement the work of the commission by 
favorable moves, ,, said Senator Juul, in commenting on 
the Mandel and Hillman steps. "It is only to be hoped 
that others follow the good example now and in the steps 
that are to follow when the investigation has advanced 
farther." 



Chapter VIII 
MORE IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 
Fifth Session, March 10 

At the morning session on March 10, Mr. James 
Simpson, vice-president of Marshall Field & Co., was re- 
called because, when on the stand before, he had refused 
to testify as to the amount of Marshall Field & Co.'s 
profits. He still persisted in his refusal on this appear- 
ance, but he added that Marshall Field & Co.'s profits 
were sufficiently large to permit the concern paying its 
women employees a minimum wage as high as $12 a week. 

The witness said he had heard that a girl could live on 
$8 or $9 a week. 

Following this Mr. O'Hara began a line of inquiry 
calculated to bring out whether, if a minimum wage of 
$12 a week was fixed by statute, the difference between 
that amount and the amount now being paid would come 
out of the pockets of the public — in increased cost of goods 
■ — or out of the profits of the company. 

Mr. Simpson replied that the increase in wages would 
be paid either out of an increase in prices for goods or 
out of the company's profits. It might be possible, he 
said, to increase wages to $12 a week without increasing 
the cost of goods. The witness stated also that increas- 



MORE IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 101 

ing wages to $12 a week might be attended by complica- 
tions. What, for instance, would a firm have to pay a 
man with family if it paid $2 a day to girls with no one but 
themselves to support? 

Lytton Tells of Hub System 

Mr. George Lytton, vice-president of The Hub, a 
large State street store, said that there existed in his store 
a system of benefits by which employees who had been with 
the firm a year or more received a gift at Christmas time. 
This amounts to about 2 per cent of the wages paid. In 
cases where the employee has been with the company a 
long time the percentage was increased. One woman, a 
cashier, he mentioned, received $500 last year as a gift 
from the firm. These gifts, however, Mr. Lytton carefully 
pointed out, were not regarded by the firm as wages or 
connected with wages. He declined to say how much these 
gifts aggregated. 

Mr. Lytton stated that his company employs 175 
women and that the lowest wage paid any woman was 
$6.50 a week. The girls who receive this amount are 
called inspectors. If their work proved satisfactory their 
wages were raised to $7 a week. 

The average age of the girls receiving $6.50 a week, 
said the witness, was 16 years. Other employees received 
$9, $10, $11, and $12. 

In response to questions Mr. Lytton declared that his 
company was in constant competition with companies 
that paid their women employees smaller wages than the 
Hub women receive, and that he had found paying the 
higher wage was good business policy. 

" We get better women," he said. "We get a better 
average of brains." 



102 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Declines to Give Net Profits 

Mr. Lytton was asked the net profit of The Hub last 
year. He declined to answer. The company, he said, 
was a close corporation, including himself, his father, and 
his brother. His father was out of the city, but he had 
written him on the subject of divulging the company's 
profits. He did not care to answer, he said, until he had 
received his father's answer. 

At this point Senator Juul made the suggestion that, 
as the department store men all seemed "squeamish" on 
the subject of profits, it might be well to postpone inquiry 
into that subject until late in the investigation. Chairman 
O'Hara said that the matter of profits was vital and that 
he thought it best to give the employers a fair opportunity 
to co-operate with the commission before employing any 
of its powers to force testimony. It was decided not to 
insist on Mr. Lytton's telling his company's profits. 

The attention of the witness was then called to the 
fact that it had generally been conceded a woman could 
not five on less than $8 or $9 a week. The minimum wage 
paid the Hub employees was under that sum. The com- 
mission wanted to know where the Hub women employees 
get the rest of the money necessary to keep body and soul 
together. 

Had Considered a Minimum 

Mr. Lytton replied that the employees of the class re- 
ferred to are all young girls and live at home. The witness 
said he did not think there was any question as to the 
moral responsibility of an employer to pay employees 
enough to live on. The members of his company, he said, 
had been considering the women's wage question for a 



MORE IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 103 

long time and had discussed the matter of establishing 
an $8 minimum wage for women. He said that he thought 
that that was enough to provide a woman with the neces- 
sities of life. He said he would furnish the commission 
with a list showing how a woman could live on $8 a week. 

The witness added that the profits of The Hub were 
sufficient to admit of increasing the wages of all women 
employees. He said he believed all of the other big stores 
could safely raise women's wages. Just the minute that 
the wages of little girls were raised to $12 a week, however, 
complications would follow. As The Hub employs only 
175 women, Mr. Lytton said that phase of the matter did 
not worry him much. In the case of Siegel, Cooper & 
Co., Marshall Field & Co., and The Fair, where most of 
the employees are women, the situation would be different. 

He then said his company has established on Indiana 
avenue a home for women and girls employed in the store. 
They get board and room there for $3.50 a week. The 
home is sufficiently near the store to obviate the necessity 
of paying car fare. He thought it might be a good idea 
for the big stores to unite in establishing a home for 
women employees. 

Basch Classifies Employees 
Mr. Joseph Basch, second vice-president of Siegel, 
Cooper & Co., classified his low wage women employees as 
beginners, learners, and apprentices. The first receive 
$3.50 a week. There are now three in the store. The 
next group receive from $4 to $4.50 a week. There are 
fifty-five apprentices at $5 a week. Other employees earn 
from $6 to $29 a week. The company employs 1,250 



104 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

women. In round figures 1,200 women receive an average 
of $8.56 a week. About 300 women are getting $8 a week. 
Half of the 1,200 were receiving less than $8.56 and half 
more than that. 

The witness said he didn't believe wages had anything 
to do with the vice question. Morality, said the witness, 
was a "state of mind." His firm, he said, felt moral re- 
sponsibility for the welfare of its women employees. 

Q. — Mr. Basch, if I were to tell you that 90 per cent 
of the girls that have been before this commission fell in 
the beginning period while they were getting $3.50 and $4 
a week, what would you say? A. — That they had an im- 
moral mind. Why, you can find column after column 
of want ads in every paper in Chicago, daily, the year 
round, and you cannot supply the demand for decent 
women and good women. 

Chairman O'Hara — On jobs that pay starvation 
wages? A. — On jobs that give them $5 and $6 and $7, 
up to $9 a week, board, and a comfortable home. 

Juul Questions Basch 

Senator Juul — Where would you have the girl go for 
the remaining $3 or $4? A. — She does not have to go 
wrong, and she does not get any — — 

Chairman O'Hara — She can die. 

The witness was asked the net profit of his firm last 
year. He refused to answer. He was asked if his com- 
pany would object to a minimum wage of $12 a week. He 
replied that the company would be willing to pay a 
"reasonable" minimum wage. Asked if he was a college 
graduate, he replied: "The college of experience is my 
college." 



MORE IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 105 

Q. — Do you know many men on State street who are 
college graduates? A. — My old friend, Netcher, he died 
sleeping on the counter; my friend Hillman, who was on 
the stand here, his college was similar to mine; Marshall 
Field was a boy in Massachusetts, somewhere in a little 
store. The Mandels are all gone, and they were honest 
boys; they started in the same manner. Mr. Lehmann, 
who left us quite a few years ago, he was out of the ranks, 
a very poor boy, and developed that wonderful business. 
Mr. Young the same way. I have not spoken of any of our 
own. Mr. Cooper started without anything. So did 
Mr. Siegel. 

"The answers have been evasive, and I think the com- 
mission has lost a little patience," said Chairman O'Hara 
at one point. 

"I didn't want to be evasive; I have tried to be as 
direct as you like to have it," the witness replied. 

Gives Montgomery Ward Data 
Mr. William C. Thorne, vice-president of Montgomery 
Ward & Co., the first afternoon witness, said his company 
was incorporated under the laws of New York. The firm 
employs 1,973 women, and, eliminating the beginners, 
1,140 get an average wage of $9.25, while, deducting 
those receiving $15 and over, there are 1,098 who average 
$8.80. 

Of those receiving from $5 to $8, 233 were placed at 
$5, 576 at $6, 373 at $7, and316at$8. Eight dollars is the 
minimum wage for a girl "adrift" or looking after herself. 
"The beginners," said Mr. Thorne, "are all between 
14 and 15 and live at home with parents or guardians. 
We believe their assertions to be true, as they have to 
present school certificates signed by their teachers." 



106 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

The general acceptance of $8 as the minimum living 
wage for women was discussed, and then Chairman O'Hara 
asked: 

"Do you think you have done right in placing the 
burden upon the parents in cases where you pay less than 
$8?" 

"Our contention is that we are relieving the family," 
replied Mr. Thorne. "Most girls want to assist their 
families, and we take them when they leave the grammar 
school, usually at about 14. 

, Believes in School Until 16 

"Personally I think they should be in school until 
they are 16. These girls don't know what to do and in 
most instances their parents bring them to us, as they 
want to place them in a nice place, one that is both moral 
and sanitary, as is ours. Therefore, we are relieving the 
family needs to the extent of $5.00. 

"We have nurses, matrons, and welfare workers who 
visit any girl who looks underfed or underclothed and 
report to us. We feel the responsibility for each and 
every one in our establishment. Doctor's bills are paid 
by us and for life, if necessary. 

"The $5 beginner is advanced to $6 in sixty or ninety 
days, or else given notice that she is not available. The 
next step to $7 is usually about six months. The average 
age of the $7 girls is under 18." 

"How much would it cost to abolish the $5, $6, and $7 
grades and pay $8 as a minimum?" inquired Mr. O'Hara. 

"About $75,000 a year." 

"Were your profits in excess of that?" 



MORE IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 107 

Profits $2,370,000 for Year 

"They certainly were. For the last fiscal year they 
were $2,370,000." 

"Put the $2,370,000 on one side of the table and the 
$75,000 on the other," said the lieutenant governor. 
"Does that not mean anything to you, Mr. Thome?" 

"It doesn't mean anything to me, because I don't 
figure it that way," responded the witness. 

"But don't your girls figure it?" persisted the inter- 
rogator. 

"We spend nearly that amount yearly in relief work, 
for sickness, old age pensions, loans to employees, and help 
for indigent families." 

"Would a minimum wage law seriously affect your 
business?" 

"Not ours, but it would have an injurious effect on 
hundreds of factories in this state. It would force them 
to move to Indiana or Wisconsin, or they could not com- 
pete with the east." 

Mr. Thorne said that, generally speaking, a man 
would better fill a position at^$12 than a woman. 

"In the event of such a law I think half the women 
workers in the state would be out of work," said he. "I 
know that would be the case in our establishment." 

"Don't you think a minimum wage for women would 
gradually increase men's pay?" 

"Possibly so." 

Juul Advances Favorite Simile 

Senator Juul advanced his favorite simile of master 
and apprentice, but could not persuade the mail order 
witness to agree with him. 



108 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

"That practice has disappeared like hundreds of others 
that would be laughed at today," said he. "I don't 
think the obligation now prevails." 

"Don't you consider that a step backward?" inquired 
Senator Juul. 

"I think we have taken a step forward," replied Mr. 
Thorne. "The apprentice was boarded and clothed, but 
he had to bind himself for a term of years. Nowadays 
the employee is a free agent and at liberty to better 
himself or herself." 

"Do you know that nearly every delinquent girl this 
commission has heard testify said she had been brought to 
shame through low wages?" 

"I heard all that testimony, and don't believe they 
told you the entire truth," responded the witness. "If 
the finding of the commission is that our scale is too low 
we will raise it, but we think our scale is about right. I 
have heard all the merchants testify about the minimum 
living wage, and I don't think they know much about it. 
You will hear that when you summon sociological students 
to appear before you, as I suppose they will. 

Ready to Aid All Employees 

"We claim all our employees without homes are on a 
self-supporting basis, and if we discover they are not we 
will put them there in an hour. 

"None of our girls can starve, be sick or underclothed. 
I think we do more for our employees than any establish- 
ment in Illinois." 

"Will you establish an $8 weekly minimum wage?" 
inquired Chairman O'Hara. 

" I don't say that we will," said the witness. " I don't 
know that you are right yet. 



MORE IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 



109 



Mr. Thorne then gave four estimates of weekly living 
from four of his $8 girls, as follows: 

GIRL C. 
Room, board and 

basket lunch $3.50 

Does own laundry... .20 

Car fare 25 

Savings bank 25 

Sundries 3.80 



GIRL A. 
Room 

Breakfast of coffee 
and rolls 


$3.00 
. .40 


Lunches 

Dinners 

Car fare 


. .90 
. 1.40 
. .60 


Sundries 


. 1.70 



$8.00 



$8.00 
GIRL B. 
Room, board, and 
laundry with sis- 
ter $3.50 

Car fare 1.00 

Insurance 24 

Sundries 3.26 



GIRL D. 

Room, board, laun- 
dry, and noon 

lunch $4.00 

Insurance 21 

Sundries 3.79 



.00 



$8.00 
Carson-Pirie Data Given 

Mr. John T. Pirie, Jr., one of the partners of Carson, 
Pirie, Scott & Co., was the next witness and said his firm 
employed 2,004 women, whose average wage, excluding de- 
partment heads, buyers, etc., was about $10. These were 
regulars as to hours. Irregulars consisted chiefly of all 
waitresses, who got $4 to $7 and two meals a day. 

He cited the following figures on employees and wages: 
Forty-six errand girls at $4, 26 at $4.50, 72 at $5, 20 at 
$5.50, 79 at $6, 9 at $6.50, 817 at $7, 28 at $7.50, and 249 
at $8. 



110 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Chairman O'Hara was inquisitive about the ability 
of girls to reach the $8 mark, which he termed "the 
bread line," and the witness said many reached it in two 
years and could not recall any taking five years. 

" What relation have low wages to the moral standard?" 
inquired Mr. O'Hara. 

"A slight connection, I should say," said Mr. Pirie. 

"Would your conscience hurt you if you knew of 
any woman in your employ who had fallen because she 
was not getting enough to live decently on?" 
"Yes, it would." 

Declines to Reveal Profits 

Mr. Pirie was asked the net profits of his concern, but 
declined to answer. Being pressed, he also declined to 
say it "roundly made over $1,000,000." 

"Would you say that making $8 the minimum wage 
would seriously impair your business?" 

"I haven't figured it." 

"Would a $12 minimum wage force your firm into 
bankruptcy?" 

"I am not prepared to answer." 

" Out of your net profits would you have enough to pay 
a minimum wage of $12 and still do good business?" 

"What is good business?" queried the witness in 
answer. Later he admitted it could have been done and 
still show a profit for the house. 

Chairman O'Hara then served notice that he personally 
would insist that all witnesses be compelled to give full 
statements. 

Senator Tossey figured that $40,000 would cover the 
increase spoken of and asked if such additional wages 
would materially affect the firm. 



MORE IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 1 1 1 

"No, not in good years," was the answer. 
Advocates Federal Wage Law 

In response to a query by Senator Juul the witness 
would not say without consulting counsel whether his 
firm would increase wages without awaiting legislation. 
He thought a minimum wage law without co-operation of 
neighboring states would not be good, and, like Mr. 
Simpson, advised a national law. 

"I think the public spirit of Chicago will solve the 
difficulty without compulsion," observed Senator Juul. 

Chairman O'Hara returned to the questioning on 
profits. 

"The people of Illinois and the entire country, he as- 
serted, "are demanding to know these figures in order to 
make just comparisons. Your refusal imperils business." 

Mr. Pirie admitted he might have said that last year 
was the greatest in the history of his firm. 

Conditions at "The Fair" 

Edward J. Lehmann, vice-president of The Fair, said 
his firm was incorporated for $1,000,000 under the Illinois 
laws. He declined to give the earnings as "of no interest 
to the public to know." 

"If the commission learned your corporation was 
making 20, 30, or 40 per cent, and that some of your em- 
ployees were getting less than a living wage,would you still 
say it was none of the public's business?" inquired Senator 
Juul. 

"Not if you could show those conditions," was the 
answer. 

Mr. Lehmann gave these figures on employees and 
wages: 74 at $3, 66 at $3.50, 58 at $4, and 59 at $4.50; 



1 12 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

all of these he classed as juveniles, 55 per cent being under 
16 years. The firm also has 128 at $5 and $5.50, 276 at $6 
and $6.50, 216 at $7, 74 at $7.50, and 180 at $8. 

If those under $8 were raised to that figure, the witness 
said, it would depreciate the income, as they would have 
to raise men as well. 

" Could you do it and pay 6 per cent on your invest- 
ment? ,, 

Would Have to Raise All 

" Yes, if we did not have to raise the other help, which 
we probably would have to do." 

" If you raised a little girl from $3 to $8 would a man 
getting $15 feel aggrieved?" 

"I think so." 

Mr. Lehmann thought his company would not fight 
legislation. 

The witness said he had abolished fines about six 
months ago. The company furnishes free medical at- 
tendance, drinking water, and contributes to the store 
benevolent system. He saw no connection between wages 
and morality or honesty. 

" Is not a cashier more likely to steal if she is poorly 
paid?" inquired Senator Juul. 

"Not if she is a good girl." 

"Do you believe that a good girl getting $4 is as well 
fortified against immorality as one getting $8?" 

"Yes, but I believe girls can get more than $4 if they 
go out as domestics. I think 87 per cent of our girls live 
at home, and the 13 per cent that do not average $9.50 
a week." 




HON. JOHN K. TENER 

Governor of Pennsylvania 

An Advocate of State Legislation on the 
subject of the Minimum Wage. 




HON. WILLIAM SULZER 

Governor of New York 

Who advocates "the Establishment of Wage Boards with authority 

to fix a living wage." 



MORE IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 1 13 

Knows no "State Street Trust" 

Mr. Lehmann declined to give the net profits of The 
Fair, and denied knowledge of an organization of State 
street merchants that might be called a " trust." He knew 
of the State Street Retail Association, but did not think 
there had been a meeting the previous week. 

"Is it possible that this association might have de- 
cided that the merchants should not give their net profit 
figures to this commission?" inquired Mr. O'Hara. 

"It is possible." 

"Was such action taken?" asked the chairman. 

"I must decline to answer without advice of counsel." 

"Do you realize that a refusal to answer that question 
practically means yes?" 

Mr. Lehmann declined to comment. 

"Whom have you consulted about your testimony 
outside of your firm? Have the other merchants entered 
into an agreement to withhold testimony?" 

No answer. 

"Do you understand that in defying this commission 
you hold yourself liable to be cited for contempt before 
the bar of the senate?" 

"I only declined until I could see counsel." 

Replying to further questions, the witness said the 
retail association did not discuss wages or prices or specify 
special sales days,but might blacklist dishonest employees. 
He recalled one case in which a floor manager had insulted 
a girl and that he had been discharged. He did not recall 
having heard of a fund raised by business men to fight a 
minimum wage Taw. 



114 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Rothschild & Co. Data 

Henry C. Schwab, vice-president and secretary of 
Rothschild & Co., admitted knowing of the State Street 
Retail Association, and declined to state his firm's profits. 

"Have you consulted your lawyers and other mer- 
chants?" asked Mr. O'Hara. 

" There has been some little discussion," was the reply. 

Mr. Schwab said he employed 1,154 women, some re- 
ceiving as low as $3. Ten per cent got less than $5 and 
less than 20 get $3. He was excused and asked to be 
ready with explicit figures as to help as well as profits. 

Light on Boston Store Profits 

Albert Ellinger, merchandise manager of the Boston 
Store, admitted his firm's profits were "within the range 
of $1,000,000." He employs 1,658 women, ranging from 
$3 a week to $5,000 a year. Twelve received $3. 

"Were any meetings of the State street merchants 
held?" suddenly interjected the chairman. 

"I don't care to answer," said Mr. Ellinger. 

He thought the Boston Store paid the highest wages 
to women of any department store in the United States, 
and cited some figures of saleswomen's earnings through 
wages and commissions, the latter varying according to 
departments. He cited these ranges of high and low 
from the last week's payroll: Jewelry, $47 and $13; 
hardware, $22 and $5; clothing, $35 and $11; drugs, $18 
and $15; hats and caps, $15 and $7. 

Employees' Savings $1,000,000 

"Employees of this store have deposits of $1,000,000 
in downtown banks," he asserted. 



MORE IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 1 15 

"Are those the $5,000 buyers?" inquired Mr. O'Hara. 

"No; they are the $3 a week girls among others." 

"Why don't you surprise us pleasantly by making 
your minimum wage $8?" inquired Senator Beall. 

"We would have to wait until Mrs. Netcher returned," 
said Mr. Ellinger. "She is in New York and will return 
soon." 

He said the store has matrons and a benefit association, 
the deficits of which are made up by the store, and to which 
about one-fourth of the premium sum was contributed. 



Chapter IX 

THE INQUIRY WIDENS 

After three days of examination of the heads of Chi- 
cago's stores, to ascertain the possible connection between 
low wages and vice, Chairman O'Hara of the Vice Com- 
mission announced that only a small part of the task had 
been accomplished. 

Public hearings, such as had occupied the attention 
of the Commission in the Hotel LaSalle, were suspended 
for ten days. In the interval several conferences were 
held. With the reopening of the public sessions the Com- 
mission planned to turn its searchlight upon stores in the 
outlying districts of Chicago to ascertain the wages of 
girls and young women there. 

Will Widen the Inquiry 

Then it was decided to investigate other industries 
and places of amusement, including the following : 

1. Factories. 

2. Sweatshops. 

3. Dance halls. 

4. Community dances. 

5. The stage, particularly chorus girls. 

6. Restaurants, to show the wages and environment of 
waitresses. 

7. Stenographers, their wages and environment. 



THE INQUIRY WIDENS 117 

8. The reported existence of vice resorts in exclusive 
residence districts. 

9. Popular music of the "smut song" variety. 

A large force of investigators was set at work under the 
direction of the Commission, gathering data on each of 
these subjects and rounding up witnesses to be called before 
the Commission at future sessions. The investigations, 
it was announced, might easily extend over a period of two 
years. 

"Every day will be a busy one for the Commission," 
Chairman O'Hara said. "We have finished only a small 
part of our work. From what we have learned, it appears 
probable low wages are the greatest source of danger to the 
moral condition of working girls and working women, but 
that is only one feature of our investigation. " 

Hears From Four Governors 
Mr. O'Hara received on March 10, from the governors 
of Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan and Nebraska, communica- 
tions in response to his general letter sent to every governor 
in the Union, inviting co-operation in the movement 
started by the Illinois Commission. The four governors 
assured him of their co-operation and promised to take up 
the subject early with the legislatures of their respective 
states. 

From Governor E. M. Amnions of Colorado came the 
word that the western executive was ready at once to join 
personally with other governors in any movement against 
white slave traffic. Governor Amnions had prepared to 
take up the question with the Colorado legislature. 



I 18 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Governor George W. Clarke sent a special message 
to the Iowa legislature on March 10, asking that body to 
become actively interested in an investigation of the white 
slave situation in Iowa. The message suggested also that 
a commission be named to serve for two years. 

New York state also will co-operate with the Illinois 
authorities in their effort to stamp out the "white slave" 
traffic, Governor Sulzer having so advised Lieutenant 
Governor O'Hara. 

Conference with the President 

Before resuming the public hearings in Chicago the 
Senate Commission planned conferences as follows: 

Conference with President Wilson at Washington, 
D. C. 

Conference in New York with John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 
to compare notes on the vice situations in Chicago and 
New York and discuss effective remedies. It was 
planned to have this conference soon after the Washington 
session, but the absence of Mr. Rockefeller from New 
York interfered with the program. 

Conference in Chicago, to be conducted by the Senate 
Commission, to be participated in by Chicago's leading 
employers of girls and women, particularly the heads of 
department stores, and as many members of the Illinois 
General Assembly as might attend. The minimum wage 
proposition to be the chief topic of discussion at this 
meeting. 

Consider Contempt Question 

The members of the Commission held a session at 
Springfield March 12, at which a definite program was 
made. The Commission also debated a question which 



THE INQUIRY WIDENS 119 

arose as a result of the three days of hearings. That was 
the question of compelling the heads of mercantile firms 
to make public their net earnings or whether refusal should 
result in contempt proceedings. 

Members of the Commission also planned to pair 
votes in the state senate so as to arrange a busy schedule 
of hearings, conferences and meetings. 

"We had a distinct purpose in calling the officials of 
the larger stores as the first step in our work," said Chair- 
man O'Hara. "If we had started quietly on some of the 
smaller angles it would have been said that the ' big ones' 
were not to be touched. It was our desire to dispel all 
possibility of such an impression." 



Chapter X 

INVESTIGATION IN PEORIA 

Wage conditions in Peoria, the second city of Illinois, 
were investigated on the spot by the Senate Commission 
at a hearing Saturday, March 15. The inquiry was held 
at the Jefferson Hotel and some twenty witnesses who had 
been subpoenaed appeared to testify. 

Lieutenant Governor O'Hara and other members of 
the Commission declared this to have been the most im- 
portant hearing so far in its investigation of the causes 
for moral delinquency of women and their barter in open 
market. 

The hearing went farther than any previous one, said 
the Commissioners, to establish definitely the scope of 
the inquiry in terms of actual conditions and to make 
concrete the paths in which the search must be made. 

Finds Conditions the Same 

Among the things it was considered the Peoria session 
established are the following: 

1. The same wage situation prevails in all principal 
cities of the state, girls being paid wages amounting to 
about one-half the figure established as the starvation line 
when they begin work and fully a third of women em- 
ployees being at or beneath this line. 

2. Stories of the downfall of girls are exactly the same 



INVESTIGATION IN PEORIA 121 

in the smaller city as they are in Chicago, and the same 
causes underlie wrecked girlhood everywhere. 

3. Big cities, like Chicago, are centers to which smaller 
cities send erring girls; smaller cities draw, in the same 
relation, girls from still smaller towns and the country. 

4. What the Commission considers the first absolutely 
honest testimony from girls of the underworld was given, 
and it named exactly the same causes as learned medical 
testimony — weakened nervous systems and abatement of 
the powers of resistance through poverty, longing for 
comradeship and mistaken affection. 

5. Influence of big Chicago business men, direct and 
indirect, guides smaller town merchants into the same 
business dealings and viewpoint of employers. 

The Suggestive Song 
After directing much of its examination to the question 
of wages paid to women and girls employed the committee 
turned its attention to another subject — one that in the 
course of the investigation has come to be regarded as one 
of the principal contributory causes to the prevalence of 
vice among young girls — the smut song and suggestive 
music. More than half a dozen chorus girls appearing at 
the local theatres were called to give testimony regarding 
the smut song. The committee had received information 
that the girls had been compelled to sing songs of the 
highly suggestive type in their work on the stage in order 
to retain their places. 

List of Witnesses 

The witnesses who appeared before the committee in- 
cluded the following: 



122 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Frank Young, manager of Wool worth & Co., 5 and 10 
cent store. 

Henry Block, president of Schipper & Block, depart- 
ment store. 

H. H. Given of the Given cloak house. 

Thomas Grier, president of Clark & Co., department 
store. 

P. A. Bergner of Bergner & Co. 

Frank Bush, manager of Bergner & Co. 

Edward C. Heidrich, president of the Peoria Cordage 
Company. 

W. G. Putnam, proprietor of a 5 and 10 cent store. 

W. J. Ross, manager of Putnam's store. 

William E. Persons, general manager of Larkin & Co., 
soap manufacturers. 

Henry Kuch, president of the Stuber & Kuch factory. 

Georgia Hall, proprietor of a resort at 229 North 
Washington street. 

M. C, nineteen years old; C. S., seventeen years old, 
and P. J., eighteen years old, members of theatrical 
troupes. 

Dr. Eugene Cohn, superintendent of the State Hospital 
for the Insane at Peoria and an expert of wide renown, de- 
fined the causes of moral delinquency as previously cited. 
Then inmates of dives, casting aside the pretenses affected 
in Chicago or the desire to "make a showing/' talked 
straight across the table, arraigned social and economic 
conditions and corroborated in the language of the woman 
of the street the doctor's testimony. 

One girl, who gave her initials as G. B., and whose testi- 
mony was considered uncolored and the first honest 
declaration of its kind, said, among other things : 



INVESTIGATION IN PEORIA 123 

11 Domestics are treated worse than dogs or horses. 

"Girls are considered machines, to be wound up and 
given no more consideration until they are run down. 

"Men take advantage of every weakness of a girl, 
and some of these tempters are men of high reputation, 
with families. 

" 1 went into a dive as a straight business proposition, 
to get a clean room, good food, sure shelter, better hours 
and just as much respect, in so far as any was shown me, 
as I received before. I'm saving money to help my mother 
and not because I want to be here." 

Comradeship is Sought 

A woman who had kept a dive for twenty-two years 
said nine-tenths of the girls who went wrong did so be- 
cause poverty had removed pleasure and comradeship 
and pleasant things from their lives, and because poverty 
also had weakened their powers of resistance. 

Rev. Barlow C. Carpenter of Peoria protested to the 
Commission against its listening to the words of fallen 
girls, but he was criticized severely by the lieutenant 
governor and by a girl witness on the stand at the time. 
He was asked to step forward, but did not. 

Follow Chicago Advice 

The influence of Chicago merchants, in so far as it 
concerned the kind of testimony that should be divulged 
to the Commission, appeared as soon as the hearing began, 
and it was admitted without hesitation by one witness, 
Henry C. Block, president of the Schipper & Block de- 
partment store, which employs 297 girls and women, 
paying 124 of them less than $8 a week. 



124 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Mr. Block told the Commission he had been advised 
by James Simpson, vice-president of Marshall Field & 
Co., of Chicago, that the latter 's lawyer had declared the 
Commission had no right to demand that witnesses tell 
the profits made by their companies at any time. He 
said the name of the lawyer was Miller. 

"After the Chicago hearing I happened to be in 
Chicago," testified Mr. Block. "I met Mr. Simpson for 
the first time. There came up in our talk reference to the 
vice inquiry. I told him I supposed the commissioners 
would visit Peoria, and wondered what I should do if I 
were asked the same questions Mr. Simpson had been 
asked. He told me his lawyer, Mr. Miller, had advised 
him this Commission had no right to demand the amount 
of profits; that such information might be obtained some 
other way. I must refuse to tell you what my profits 
are until I have talked with my lawyer." 

Girls Blame Low Wages 

Expert testimony on why girls leave virtuous lives 
was heard by the Commission. Keepers and inmates of 
dives on the witness stand directly denied statements pre- 
viously made by employers and said that low wages are 
responsible for most wrecked girlhood. 

Dr. Eugene Cohn, of the Peoria State Hospital, said 
morality was a question of heredity and environment 
and substantiated statements of the women that low 
wages are a chief contributing cause of immorality. 

Two girls from the state school at Geneva told how 
they had been led from virtuous lives in Peoria when they 
had insufficient funds to keep themselves from temptation 
and the lures held out to them by unscrupulous men. 



INVESTIGATION IN PEORIA 125 

One, weeping on the witness stand, was excused. Lieu- 
tenant-Governor O'Hara applied the same rule as in 
Chicago, that girls' names be suppressed. 

Parents Also Responsible 

In the opinion of the commissioners, freely expressed, 
at least one Peoria merchant made a better showing in 
support of wages less than the " starvation line" figure 
of $8 than had been made heretofore, although the Com- 
mission refuted his testimony by other questions. He was 
Carl Block, manager of the store whose head had been 
advised in Chicago not to tell profits. He said he felt 
that an employer was morally responsible for his help, 
but that parents also were responsible. He said girls 
living at home needed less to live upon than girls adrift. 

"Why," interrupted Lieutenant Governor O'Hara, 
"do you consider there is some sort of divine providence 
that lessens the cost of food in a home or that relieves 
every one from paying rent or car fare or clothing?" 

Society to Blame Too 

The witness said he considered that girls who had to 
go out and make money other than paid in the store, in 
order to live, were less efficient than those well paid, but 
he differentiated between the girl who got that " difference" 
from her father, mother or brother, and her who must get 
it in devious ways. Just because homes were poor, the 
witness reasoned, and as long as beginners or inefficient 
girls were unable to earn the suggested minimum of $8, 
he did not consider it right that they should become 
"wards" of business. 

"These girls," said Mr. Block, "have a right to live 



126 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

and to the things that enable them to live. But if society- 
has left their parents unable to care for them while they 
are engaged in a 'business schooling/ one might call it, 
then society should make up for it in specialization 
schools. There should be provided by the public a means 
whereby girls should have opportunity to learn to be self- 
supporting. Not to provide this leaves either to the 
parent, often too poor herself, or to the merchants the 
necessity of paying for the training. The employer is 
not to blame because the girl has to go out to work; he 
is entitled to receive for his pay services worth that 
amount." 

Minimum Like Chicago 

Wages in Peoria run much as they were found to run 
in Chicago. Minimums of $4, $4.50 and $5 are paid to 
beginners and errand girls. 

William E. Persons, manager of the Larkin Company, 
soap and toilet article manufacturers, said the 316 girls 
he employed were paid at those wages for beginners, and 
up to $17 after years of service. 

Frank G. Young, manager of a 5 and 10 cent store, 
said his store could pay an $8 minimum without so 
seriously depreciating profits as to harm investors. The 
highest salary paid in his store was $10. 

State penitentiaries were blamed by Edward C. Heid- 
rich, president of the Peoria Cordage Company, for the 
small profits and the precarious nature of his business, 
and the inability to pay more than $5 as a minimum. 
He said Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Indiana, 
Kansas, Missouri and Michigan jails were his competitors. 
He thought a girl should have $8 a week as a minimum. 



INVESTIGATION IN PEORIA 127 

Arthur Heidrich, a son of the previous witness, said 
that while at college he made an "extensive" investiga- 
tion of why girls went wrong, and was convinced it was 
because of their first drink, divorce laws or forgotten 
marriage promises. 

Sad Stories of Girls 

"P," a young girl, testified she was led astray while 
employed in the Larkin soap factory. "My parents 
are poor," she said, "and I started out to earn my own 
living. I met a man who told me how I could earn more 
money. I had to divide the money with him." 

At this point in her recital she gave way to tears and 
was excused. 

"C. S." touched the hearts of her hearers when she 
told of having tried to remain honest on $3 a week, work- 
ing seven days a week and fourteen hours each day. 

"My employer, who is now in the penitentiary, in- 
duced me to go wrong when I told him I could not live on 
$3 a week." 

"M. C." attributed her downfall to a small wage and 
the necessity of supporting herself and her widowed 
mother. "I was getting $3 a week," said the girl, "and 
I found this insufficient for the support of my mother 
and myself. When I appealed to my employer he laughed 
at me and invited me to enter upon the life I now am 
following. I did." 

The girl's former employer was said to be one of the 
largest employers in Peoria, but his name was with- 
held by Lieutenant Governor Barratt O'Hara in the ab- 
sence of corroboration of the girl's story. 

"C. S.'s" story was practically the same. "When I 



128 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

was fifteen years old," she said, "I found work in a candy 
store. My employer worked his will by threatening to 
discharge me. Afterwards he proposed that I flirt with 
young men who patronized the store. ' It will help busi- 
ness/ he said. I was forced to divide my earnings from 
this source with my employer." 

This girl now is in the Florence Crittenton Home in 
Peoria. 

Argues Against Minimum Wage 

A new argument against a minimum wage— that it 
would drive many necessarily poorly paid girls to the 
street — was advanced by W. J. Reese, manager of a 5 and 
10 cent store owned by W. G. Putnam. He employs 
twenty-seven girls, more than half of whom receive $4 
weekly. 

"I believe the low wage justifiable," he said. "My 
store is practically a kindergarten for girls who later 
secure $5 and $6 jobs elsewhere. If you pass an $8 
minimum wage law what will become of my girls? I 
can't pay such a price for their services, and they will be 
forced on the street. My profits last year averaged about 
$4 weekly." 




HON. WILLIAM T. HAINES 
Governor of Maine 
Who Strongly Favors the Establishment by Law 
of a Living Wage for Women. 




WM. HODGES MANN 

Governor of Virginia. 

He is a supporter of the Minimum Wage Campaign, believing in 

"Good Wages and Good Work." 



Chapter XI 

MANY GOVERNORS CO-OPERATE 

When the Illinois Vice Commission visited President 
Wilson in Washington the members were able to show 
that the governors of thirty-two states of the Union had 
promised more or less active co-operation in securing a 
minimum wage for women as one important step in the 
suppression of white slavery. 

In an effort to learn the views of the governors on the 
questions involved, the enterprising Chicago Tribune, 
"the world's greatest newspaper," wired all the state 
executives early in March. Among the replies received 
were the following, which make interesting reading for all 
concerned in the problem: 

Governor of New York 
In reply to your telegram just received, I desire to 
say that I favor a minimum wage law for women along 
lines that shall be just and fair to all concerned. Have 
written Lieut. Gov. O'Hara that I will co-operate in every 
way in my power to help stamp out white §lave traffic. 
William Sulzer, Albany, N. Y. 



Governor of Maine 
I favor a national law. Shall be glad to co-operate 



130 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

in any way I can with Lieut. Gov. O'Hara to prevent or 
break up the white slave traffic in this country. 

William T. Haines, Augusta, Me. 



Governor of Kansas 
We favor minimum wage for women of $6, with elastic 
provision for apprentices and physically disabled, both 
in state and nation. Such a bill passed one branch of our 
legislation now in session, but was defeated in the other 
by a scant vote. Kansas has passed the white slave bill 
and it is now a law. Will be pleased to co-operate with 
Illinois officials for national legislation of like character. 
George H. Hodges, Topeka, Kas. 



Governor of Ohio 

I am in favor of a minimum wage scale for women. 
Action would doubtless be necessary by both the states 
and federal government. Co-operation with any friends 
of the movement will be given by me. There will be intro- 
duced in our legislature tomorrow an administration bill 
compelling mercantile houses to file statements of hours 
of labor and compensation for women. 

James M. Cox, Columbus, 0. 



Governor of Wisconsin 
I believe in a minimum wage law for women, the 
amount of the wage in each case to be fixed by a commis- 
sion under a general legislative rule. Upon this and other 
like subjects a national law is preferable to a state statute, 
but if action by the general government cannot be had, a 
state law is better than none. In reply to Lieut. Gov. 



MANY GOVERNORS CO-OPERATE 131 

O'Hara's request, I have already replied that such a deal 
as he advocates is now pending in the Wisconsin legis- 
lature and likely will be enacted into law. 

Francis E. McGovern, Madison, Wis. 



Governor of Virginia 
Your first question has not been much discussed in 
Virginia. Conditions here are different from those in 
Chicago. I have not given the matter careful considera- 
tion and therefore do not answer. There is little, if any 
"white slavery" in Virginia, as I understand the term, 
but I will co-operate in any movement to prevent or sup- 
press it. It is a crime which society should not tolerate. 
William Hodges Mann, Richmond, Va. 



Governor of Mississippi 

I favor both state and national law fixing $8 minimum 
wage scale for women. Willing to co-operate with O'Hara 
in stamping out traffic in girls known as white slavery. 
Earl Brewer, Jackson, Miss. 



Governor of Florida 

Favor all needed remedies to eradicate white slavery 
traffic. Have not had time to give study to question of 
minimum wages for women. 

Park Trammell, Tallahassee, Fla. 



Governor of Delaware 

The time has passed for the presentation of new legis- 
lation to the general assembly of Delaware, but I am 



132 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

interested in both subjects you mention in your telegram, 
just received. I shall be glad to co-operate with the 
Illinois commission to stamp out the white slave traffic. 
Charles R. Miller, Dover, Del. 



Governor of Minnesota 
I heartily favor legislation proposed by Lieut.-Gov. 
O'Hara and have transmitted his request for co-operation 
to the legislature now in session, with a favorable recom- 
mendation. 

A. O. Eberhart, St. Paul, Minn. 



Governor of Iowa 
I favor a national minimum wage law and will co- 
operate with Lieut.-Gov. O'Hara. Have already sent 
message to legislature. 

George W. Clarke, Des Moines, la. 



Governor of Wyoming 
I favor a minimum wage law for women, but wage 
should depend largely upon locality, as a man or woman 
can live much cheaper in the country than in one of the 
great cities. I should think a national law with minimum 
wage that could be increased in the several states where 
necessary would be the best way to meet the situation. 
Joseph M. Carey, Cheyenne, Wyo. 



Governor of Montana 
I am in favor of a minimum wage law for women, but 
am not prepared to say what wage should be fixed. It 



MANY GOVERNORS CO-OPERATE 133 

seems that the matter would be better reached through 
state law. Shall be glad to lend my assistance in any way 
to stamp out white slavery traffic. 

S. V. Stewaet, Helena, Mont. 

Governor of Washington 

I believe that women should receive reasonable com- 
pensation for labor performed, and not be discriminated 
against because of sex, but so much depends upon the 
provisions of any minimum wage law that it would be 
necessary to examine its provisions before stating my 
position. I am strongly in favor of aggressive action to 
stamp out the white slave traffic. 

Ernest Lister, , Olympia, Wash. 

Governor of California 
Strongly do I favor a minimum wage for women. 
The exact sum I could not fix, but investigations such as 
are now being carried on in Illinois should be prosecuted 
in every state to enable us to determine upon a wage 
just to the employer and which shall be a living wage for 
the employee. I favor action both nationally and in the 
various states. I will gladly co-operate in any legitimate 
investigation leading to proper legislation and which has 
for its design the fixing by law of "a minimum wage for 
women that is a living wage and the stamping out of 
white slavery." 

Hiram W. Johnson, Sacramento, Cal. 

Governor of South Carolina 

Am in favor of giving women anything they want and 
protecting them under all conditions and circumstances. 



134 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

The protection of the virtue of the women of the south is 
our first duty, and the determination to protect the virtue 
of our women is our greatest heritage, and the south will 
never prove untrue to her trust. This should be true of 
the nation. 

Cole L. Blease, Columbia, S. C. 



Governor of Arizona 
I unhesitatingly go on record as favoring a minimum 
wage for women. While I have not adequate statistics 
on which to base an estimate, I believe conditions in 
Arizona would justify an act fixing the minimum wage 
for women at $10 a week. Such legislation should, in my 
opinion, be secured by unity of action among the states 
of the union, since the cost of living varies so appreciably 
in different parts of the country. Since the " white slave " 
traffic is in no slight degree fostered by a wage scale dis- 
proportionate to the high cost of living, as well as by in- 
sanitary and immoral surroundings of women workers, a 
minimum wage law and legislation for the betterment of 
industrial conditions should precede any concerted move- 
ment to stamp out this widespread evil. No less essential 
of course, is a drastic law, strictly enforced, against the 
inhuman creatures who lead women, for pecuniary gain, 
into paths of shame. While the "white slave " problem 
has not as yet assumed formidable proportions in Arizona, 
I realize the necessity of going forth to intercept and 
eliminate, as far as possible, an evil which grows with in- 
creasing population and which strikes directly at the 
American home. I am heartily in accord with Lieut. - 
Gov. O'Hara's plan for state commissions to unite in fight- 



MANY GOVERNORS CO-OPERATE 135 

ing the "white slave" traffic, and will gladly co-operate 
with them. 

Geo. W. P. Hunt, Phoenix, Ariz. 



Governor of Oregon 
I am decidedly in favor of minimum wage legislation 
for women. I recommended such a law to our legislature 
at its recent session and aided in securing its passage. 
Oregon has thus taken an advanced stand in the matter. 
What is a fair minimum wage is a question more or less 
local in its nature and can only be determined after a 
careful investigation of conditions and the cost of living 
in each state. My office will gladly co-operate to the 
fullest extent with Lieut. Gov. O'Hara in his great battle 
against organized vice and greed and in behalf of the 
working girls of this nation. 

Oswald West, Salem, Ore. 



Governor of Michigan 
I am in favor of a minimum wage for women. Prefer 
full wage. Will do all in my power to co-operate with 
O'Hara in conducting investigation relative to the "white 
slavery" traffic. 

Woodbridge N. Ferris, Port Huron, Mich. 



Governor of New Mexico 

Message received. Gov. W. C. McDonald ill and in 
bed now. Says he will gladly co-operate with Lieut .- 
Gov. O'Hara. 

Secretary to Governor, Santa Fe, N. M. 



136 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Governor of Utah 
A minimum wage bill is pending in the legislature, 
with the rate fixed at $1.25 a day. It doubtless will pass 
and become a law. Conditions here are not so urgent as 
in the crowded centers of population, but I shall be pleased 
to co-operate with Lieut .-Gov. O'Hara in his worthy effort. 
William Spry, Salt Lake City, Utah. 



Matter Now National Issue 

"This matter has now become a national issue," said 
Chairman O'Hara of the Illinois Commission; when the 
governors had been heard from. "The testimony of 
merchants who have appeared before us is that a national 
minimum wage is better than state laws. If carried for- 
ward at this particular time I think we can secure na- 
tional legislation. In the course of ten years we might 
not obtain such a sympathetic public interest as has been 
aroused at this time. 

" I think a spirit of co-operation and sane conservatism 
will bring national and uniform state legislation. There 
is no doubt of the widespread interest the Illinois investi- 
gation has aroused. The Commission has heard from 
nearly every big city in the country, and many have 
asked that we visit them. From advices we have received 
I do not doubt that within a week minimum wage legis- 
lation will be introduced in every state assembly in the 
country." 

Massachusetts Shows the Way 

Governor Foss of Massachusetts, in a letter to the 
author, dated March 25, 1913, calls attention to the fact 
that in 1911 the Massachusetts Legislature created, in 



MANY GOVERNORS CO-OPERATE 137 

accordance with the governor's recommendations, a com- 
mission to investigate the subject of minimum wages. 
Also, the Legislature of 1912, continuing this subject, 
created a permanent commission to report upon the 
industrial situation in cases where the average wage was 
alleged to be less than it should be. 

"This latter commission," says Governor Foss, "is 
locally known as the Minimum Wage Commission, but 
it has not so far been invested with mandatory powers. 
It can only investigate and report publicly as to the con- 
ditions which it discovers in any field toward which its 
activities have been directed by petition or otherwise.' ' 

As to Governor Foss's personal views, he feels that 
while this is a very important subject, "it is necessary to 
proceed along these lines with extreme caution, having in 
view the fact that an arbitrary imposition of a minimum 
wage for women might possibly result in the substitution 
of men, thus throwing large numbers of women out of 
work. 

"It is hoped that when legislation is finally adjusted 
to these conditions, minimum wage scales may take into 
account the relative needs of both men and women so 
that there may be no serious disturbance of the industrial 
field. 

"A further matter of the utmost importance appears 
to be the uniform consideration of these subjects in the 
various states concerned. The arbitrary imposition of a 
minimum wage scale in one state, now an industrial com- 
petitor of another state (the latter state not possessing 
such legislation), would of course occasion a disturbance 
of conditions as between these two states." 



138 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Governor McGovern's Views 
In a message to the Wisconsin Legislature, January 9, 
1913, Governor Francis E. McGovern discussed the 
minimum wage, and said: 

"The Supreme Court of the United States and several 
state courts have repeatedly recognized that inequality of 
bargaining power constitutes a reasonable ground on which 
the state may aid the weaker party. For example, in the 
execution of judgments, Wisconsin was the first state to 
adopt a wage exemption, providing in its constitution of 
sixty-five years ago for protection of the working man's 
'necessary comforts of life/ At that time the law was 
generally regarded as an infringement of the rights of 
property and was denounced as class legislation. But 
Wisconsin was soon followed by nearly every other state 
in the Union, and the courts everywhere eventually came 
to recognize wage exemptions as matters of sound public 
policy, justifying broad and liberal interpretation. 

"Modern industrial conditions have brought this same 
question of the 'necessary comforts of life' to the front 
in a new form. Great corporations employing hundreds 
of scattered tenement house workers have a superior bar- 
gaining power that is already recognized by the state in 
its law prohibiting the employer from sending out work 
to a tenement house that is not licensed; for if he be 
permitted without regulation or control to send out work 
to the homes, he can secure free light, rent and heat besides 
the advantage of defenceless competition among out- 
workers and the opportunity to evade the women's and 
children's hours of labor law by adding the time at home 
to the regular period of employment in the factories. 



MANY GOVERNORS CO-OPERATE 139 

Undoubtedly there are other like cases of depressed wages 
which investigation will in time reveal. 

"A bill providing for minimum wages was introduced 
in the legislature of this state two years ago but failed 
of passage. This class of legislation, while reported to be 
wholesome and effective in Australia and England, is so 
novel to our system of jurisprudence and involves such 
difficult problems of administration that the legislature 
should proceed with caution respecting it. But we should 
not again fail to do anything whatever in the matter. 
In the beginning it might be best to make the idea effective 
in a limited field, such as the wages of women in the most 
oppressive occupations. At the same time the Industrial 
Commission might be authorized to experiment with and 
develop methods of investigation and administration 
adapted to the enforcement of such a law. No enterprise 
in Wisconsin is dependent for success upon the underpaid 
labor of women, although there may be establishments 
that are willing to exploit this class of economically de- 
fenceless workers. They should not be permitted to do 
so. We should have a carefully drawn law fixing a 
minimum wage for women. To this proposition the plat- 
form of the party in power has pledged its members, 
Legislation within these limits should therefore now be 
framed." 

Good Wages and Good Work 

Governor Mann of Virginia writes under date of 
March 21, 1913, as follows: 
"Dr. Thomas H. Russell, Chicago. 

"Dear Sir: — I have always believed in good wages 
and good work. I think that the amount paid should 



140 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

never be less than will permit the person receiving it to 
live comfortably. I believe this is in the interest of both 
the employer and the employee. Very truly yours, 
"Wm. Hodges Mann, Governor." 

Believes in a Minimum Wage 

Governor Earl Brewer of Mississippi writes as fol- 
lows March 21, 1913: 

" The investigation in Illinois brings out in bold relief 
the necessity of safe-guarding the women and girls who 
labor for their daily bread. Virtue is too priceless a 
possession in woman to be taken from her either by the 
wiles of designing men or by the necessity of gaining her 
daily bread. I believe in a minimum wage for women, 
and this minimum should be fixed at not less than Eight 
Dollars a week, — enough, at any rate, to give her the 
necessities of life and some of its comforts. I firmly be- 
lieve that a woman ought not to be required by any em- 
ployer to labor for Six Dollars a week and required to 
maintain herself. 

"Our entire country needs to be aroused on this sub- 
ject, and it is being aroused as never before." 

The Aim in Arizona 

Hon. George W. P. Hunt, Governor of Arizona, writes 
the author as follows, under date of March 24, 1913: 

"I am of the opinion that a minimum wage of $10 per 
week, with reasonable limit of hours of work, should be 
established for women. That is our aim here in Arizona, 
and it is rightly considered one of the most important 
things for progressive government to deal with. 

"To those who have had practical experience with the 



MANY GOVERNORS CO-OPERATE 141 

cost of living the argument is closed and judgment rendered; 
as soon as the truth is known about the prevailing wage 
minimum. To such persons any argument to the effect 
that $5 to $8 a week is enough for the support of a working 
girl is a waste of words and time. The girl or woman who 
supports herself cannot provide enough to eat and wear 
out of such sums. That the white slave traffic thrives on 
such a condition I cannot doubt. 

"What impresses me greatly in the testimony offered 
in Chicago recently is the revelation that large employers 
who pay inadequate wages to their women employees 
contribute thousands upon thousands of dollars annually 
to charity. This contribution to charity of course comes 
out of the profits, and indicates that the employers can' 
afford to give away a large part of the wealth produced 
by the poorly paid girls. The thought that occurs here 
is that charity might well begin at home, and that it would 
take a vastly practical turn if put into the shape of ad- 
ditional wages. Charity dispensed by large employers 
the way it is now really is given by the underpaid pro- 
ducers of huge profits, who are not consulted about it and 
who cannot afford to be so generous. The employers get 
all the credit and glory, yet in the minds of thinking 
citizens the glory and respect accorded them would be 
much more substantial and worth while if they would cut 
off all of their gifts to outside charity solicitors, and pay 
every woman employee enough to insure her comfort and 
self-respect. This would be plain justice, not charity, 
and would perform a social service far greater than what 
results from organized charity. The latter represents 
misfortune that has happened or mischief that has been 



142 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

done, while the former might prevent the mischief in the 
first place. One of the logical tasks in the work for 
human progress is to reduce the need for charity, and here 
is a practical method that would be sure to show results 
in that direction. If we attack the cause of misfortune 
we shall have less reason to feel concerned over effects." 

Women Imposed Upon 

Governor S. V. Stewart of Montana writes from 
Helena, March 26, as follows: 

11 Recent investigations in Illinois and other sections 
of the country tend to make firmer my advocacy of a 
minimum wage for working women. Since the days of 
Eden, when Adam attempted to shift the blame to Eve's 
shoulders, woman has been imposed upon by man, and 
today her treatment at the hands of those who employ 
her in the trades and other lines is in very many instances 
the refinement of cruelty. Forced to earn her own living, 
the employer all too frequently takes advantage of her 
situation to compel her to accept a wage much smaller 
than he would be forced to pay a man for the same work. 

" What the minimum wage should be would, of course, 
vary as dictated by differing conditions in the several 
States and communities. It is inhuman to attempt to 
figure in terms of pennies just how little a woman can 
exist upon. The owner of a horse does not figure thus in 
the care of his dumb servant. The minimum wage should 
be ample to permit the wage-earner to live in at least com- 
parative comfort. She would then be removed from some 
of the temptations that assail her under existing con- 
ditions." 



Chapter XII 

CONDITIONS IN WASHINGTON 

On their way to Washington the Illinois Vice Com- 
missioners called on Governor J. K. Tener of Pennsylvania 
at Harrisburg, Pa., on Friday, March 21. Governor 
Tener assured them that he would send a special message 
to the Pennsylvania legislature urging it to take steps to 
stamp out the vice traffic and to study the subjects relat- 
ing to vice with a view to co-operating with sister states 
in a national movement. 

"I shall be glad to recommend to the legislature this 
whole matter with a special recommendation to investi- 
gate and adopt such measures as will stamp out the white 
slave traffic. It appeals at once to every one and is a 
traffic that no human being should be engaged in," said 
the governor. 

O'Hara Tells of Illinois' Work 

Lieut. Governor Barratt O'Hara was the chief speaker 
for the Illinois Commission, Senators Beall and Juul 
supplementing his remarks. All said they wished to 
correct the impression that the Commission seeks to re- 
flect upon the purity of America's working women, but 
it desires to find out whence come the victims of vice and 
to take all possible means to stop the traffic. 

Chairman O'Hara said the Commission desires to re- 



144 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

move the menaces surrounding girls who have to earn 
their living. 

In closing the conference Senator Beall outlined what 
had been done in the country in the way of minimum wage 
legislation and workmen's compensation, saying that "in 
Massachusetts a law providing for the wage had worked 
well and such statutes had been successfully operated in 
England and other European countries.' ' 

At the White House 

On their arrival in Washington, the members of the 
Commission were received by the President at the White 
House shortly before noon, Saturday, March 22. Lieu- 
tenant Governor Barratt O'Hara, opened the presentation 
of their case. 

"This Commission was appointed to make a study of 
womanhood and conditions that menace womanhood," 
Mr. O'Hara said. "We would like to make recommenda- 
tions that you call a meeting of representatives of the 
different states to discuss the matter of state laws and 
also perhaps of national laws which will remove from 
American womanhood some of the menaces which it now 
must face. 

"This meeting should be attended by the members of 
the various commissions which have been appointed and 
are to be appointed by the various states and we would 
like to have it called in Washington some time in the fall 
or, for that matter, in the summer. 

"Besides the members of these commissions it ought to 
be attended by the governors of the states as well as 
delegates selected by these governors and by the mayors 
of some of the principal cities. 




GOVERNOR WOODBRIDGE N. FERRIS 

of Michigan. 

He is a firm believer in the "full" wage and thinks minimum 

wage legislation worthy of consideration in the meantime. 




HON. GEORGE W. P. HUNT 

Governor of Arizona 

Who says, "lam of the opinion that a minimum wage of $10 per 

week, with reasonable limit of hours of work, should be 

established for women. That is our aim in 

Arizona." 



CONDITIONS IN WASHINGTON 145 

"It should form a national commission to study all 
questions dealing with vice." 

Beall Adds His Plea 

Senator Edmond Beall, who offered the resolution in 
the Illinois Senate creating the White Slave Commission, 
followed Mr. O'Hara. 

"I spent four months in Europe," Mr. Beall said, 
"studying conditions in France, Holland, Germany and 
Belgium and came home impressed with the idea of the 
importance of this problem. Therefore, I offered the 
resolution which created this Commission. I believe in 
womanhood, motherhood and anti-suicide. 

"I know of no one better than you who can call to- 
gether the governors of the states to take up this problem. 
We already have the replies of thirty-two governors 
sanctioning our motives, and I believe if you call a meet- 
ing at this time the thing will be settled." 

Juul Proposes Women's Homes 

Senator Niels Juul advanced the idea of national 
homes for women who are exposed to dangers when cross- 
ing state lines in search of work. 

"The first thing impressed on us," he said, "was to 
make this matter a nation-wide movement. If the causes 
are studied and the cures applied only in Illinois it would 
mean a matter of injustice in the state. For instance, 
if the minimum wage law were to apply only in Illinois 
it would be an injustice to our manufacturers because of 
the competition of the states where they have no such 
thing. 

"It seems to me that one thing the national govern- 



146 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

ment can do is to establish in each great commercial center 
a home where women can be taken care of when they cross 
the state lines in search of employment. 

''The government takes care of a pound of tobacco. 
It follows the commodity from Kentucky or Virginia 
across the state line and even counts the number of cigars 
made out of that pound of tobacco. If the national 
government can devote so much time to a pound of tobacco 
or a pound of butterine, it can surely devote some time 
to the care of womanhood traveling from one state to an- 
other. 

"The need is so crying that if we were to attempt to 
tell you, Mr. President, how bad it is, as shown by the 
evidence we have taken, it would be unbelievable. The 
belief seems to have arisen that this Commission is study- 
ing merely the question of wages, but such is not the case, 
for it is going into all phases of the vice problem. The 
greater part of the data we have gathered is unprintable. 
It reveals conditions so horrible, so revolting, that most 
of the states need the strong arm of the national govern- 
ment back of the states to make any remedy effective. " 

This ended the presentation of the subject matter. 
President Wilson bowed his acknowledgment and asked 
the Commission to leave with him its recommendations, 
promising to give them his consideration. 

Public Hearing in Washington 

At the New Willard Hotel in the afternoon of the same 
day a hearing was held at which suggestions were con- 
tributed by experts of national reputation who are identi- 
fied with reform organizations of various kinds. The 
room was crowded with social workers, doctors, investi- 



CONDITIONS IN WASHINGTON 147 

gators and officials of welfare associations, and the problem 
was discussed from all sides. Several experts came from 
outside cities to attend. It was perhaps the most notable 
gathering of its kind ever held. 

Chief among the manifold causes aud cures relative 
to immorality, the following were presented by various 
speakers: 

Remedies for Vice 

1. Establishment of the whipping-post for men who 
lead girls astray, as well as for white slave traffickers, as 
in England. 

2. Tax on bachelors, Senator Beall's idea being in- 
dorsed by Dr. W. C. Woodward, health officer of the 
District of Columbia. 

3. Instruction of the young in sex physiology and 
hygiene. 

4. Stronger state laws against seduction and kindred 
evils. 

5. Improvement of housing conditions throughout 
the country, particularly in the crowded tenement dis- 
tricts of the cities. 

6. Crusade of education that will change the attitude 
of men toward women. 

7. Supervision of recreations and amusements. 

8. Prohibition of the " unspeakable dance" and the 
obscene popular song. 

9. Appointment of women police and adoption of 
woman suffrage. 

10. Vocational training that will enable girls to be 
worth higher wages when they leave school. 

11. Uplifting of standards in the home; better parental 
supervision. 



148 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

12. Single standard of morals for both sexes to be 
established by a campaign of education. 

13. Minimum wage laws — on this there was a strong 
division of opinion among the experts. 

Causes 

Starvation wages. 

Breaking down of the moral fiber of the nation in 
general. 

Suggestive plays, pictures, dances and songs. 

Lack of proper parental supervision. 

A swing from the standards of a generation ago that 
has gone to the extreme, liberty being license. 

Attitude of mankind toward womanhood, some of the 
experts saying that 90 per cent of immorality is instigated 
by men. 

Lack of care on the part of parents in picking persons 
to take charge of their children. 

Joy riding and rag dancing. 

Love of display and finery. 

The mashing evil. 

Assails Society Girls 

As to the example set by "high society" as a con- 
tributing cause to immorality among the poorer people, 
this phase was not gone into as extensively as had been 
planned. One expert, however, Mrs. J. P. S. Neleigh, 
head of Neighborhood House, caused a stir. 

"To regulate joy riding and 'rag' dancing is more 
important than a minimum wage," she said. "Joy rid- 
ing is one great evil. We cannot do too much against 
1 rag ' dancing, for the girl who does ' rag ' dancing is playing 
with fire. 



CONDITIONS IN WASHINGTON 149 

"We have no trouble in barring it among the girls 
who attend our home. I have had more trouble with 
society girls who have come down and volunteered their 
services." 

As to the connection between low wages and immorality, 
a question to which much attention was devoted, the 
majority of the experts expressed the opinion that low 
wages constitute an insignificant factor, compared with 
other influences, in making girls morally delinquent, this 
coinciding with the finding of the bureau of labor, which 
in its report said that as a direct influence low wages 
formed a negligible factor, while as an indirect influence 
their effect was disastrous. 

Opens Inquiry at Hotel 

When Lieutenant-Governor O'Hara called the session 
to order at 2 o'clock the red room of the Willard Hotel 
was well filled with men and women identified with reform 
movements. Mr. O'Hara introduced Senator Juul, dean 
of the Illinois Senate, and attorney of the Commission, to 
outline the work already done. 

Mr. Juul described the hearings in Chicago and how 
the inquiry rapidly developed until it was essential to 
success to make it a nation-wide movement. 

"It has started to develop into a crusade and inquiry 
that will cover the entire country," he said. "President 
Wilson promised his support. Governor. Tener has 
pledged his aid." 

Father of Eleven Explains 
Senator Beall presented some of the aspects of the 
inquiry. 



150 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

"I am the father of nine boys and twin daughters," 
he said, "and always have been interested in the pro- 
tection of womanhood. Our inquiry is not confined to 
low wages alone, but that impression has been made 
because the rest of the data we have gathered has been 
so revolting that it could not be printed. 

"In Illinois the work already has accomplished good. 
Edward Hillman, a department store owner, told me that 
he would not begrudge $1,000 for what he learned at the 
hearings." 

"Before starting, let me say that this Commission 
never has attacked the morality of the American working 
woman," said Mr. O'Hara. "They are as pure a class of 
women as the world has ever seen." 

After these preliminaries, which were listened to with 
great attention, the Commission began to call on the ex- 
perts it had invited to testify. 

An International Expert 

Ardeen Foster, international commissioner of the 
British Federation for the Emancipation of Sweated 
Women, Girls and White Slave Victims, spoke of the 
whipping-post law in England. 

"As a result of this flogging law, or 'cat's 7 law, white 
slavers are becoming fewer," he said. 

"A man flogged once will never come back. In 
London there are 2,500 beings in the shape of men, bullies, 
procurers, who carry on white slavery as an organized in- 
dustry." 

Mr. Foster spoke of investigations in the slums of 
London as a newspaper reporter. 



CONDITIONS IN WASHINGTON 151 

Hold Low Wages to Blame 

"I found that at least 60 per cent of the fallen women 
in London owed their fall to starvation wages," he said. 
''Before I left London one night I found a woman about 
to jump off London Bridge. I stopped her and asked 
questions. She told me that although a married woman 
she had been for a year the mistress of four men. Starva- 
tion wages were the cause of her wrongdoing." 

"In how many cases are the men at fault?" asked Mr. 
O'Hara. 

"At least 20 per cent is the fault of man," replied Mr. 
Foster. "I am going to stand for parliament, and if 
elected the first bill I shall introduce will be one giving 
thirty lashes to every seducer, treating them like the 
panders." 

This declaration was applauded. 

Some Official Testimony 

Stanley W. Finch, special commissioner of the United 
States government in the suppression of white slavery, 
was questioned at length. 

"Some 500 men have been sent to jail for violation of 
the white slave laws," Mr. Finch said. "We are now 
making a card index investigation of the causes originally 
leading to the downfall of women." 

"Would a minimum wage aid?" asked Senator Juul. 

"It does not appear that in any large percentage of 
these white slave cases the crime would have been pre- 
vented by a minimum wage. We find that the great 
majority of white slaves come from domestic service. 

"One remarkable feature of these cases is that many 
victims are wives. I looked over 100 cases, and in 75 



152 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

per cent the victims were wives of the traffickers. The 
most common method of the trafficker is to get his victims 
through marriage or the promise of marriage. 

"We have estimated the number of traffickers at 2,500 
men. This is perhaps underestimated. We have the 
records of 1,500 men. 

"I am happy to say that the work of the government 
has already decreased materially the traffic in whiteslaves. 

"For lack of funds we have not yet undertaken much 
work in Chicago and New York, but we hope to this year." 

In reply to questions by H. Martin Williams, Mr. 
Finch spoke of spurious advertisements that lure girls 
from rural districts. 

"Unfortunately," he said, "there is no law preventing 
the use of the mails for bogus advertisements offering 
lucrative employment. Many victims are lured by such 
1 ads/ 

" The states have inadequate laws on seduction. There 
should be a remedy. 

" The great trouble is the wrong attitude of men toward 
women. They have the wrong attitude and have so much 
money to tempt women. Until we can educate men to 
appreciate the enormity of their offenses, we will have the 
problem before us regardless of the wage. A minimum 
wage alone would not be a remedy." 

Would Hang Some Offenders 

"What do you think of the whipping-post for seduc- 
tion?" asked the chairman. 

"Most will agree with me that hanging is none too 
good for such offenders. I think the whipping-post 
beneficial." 



CONDITIONS IN WASHINGTON 153 

"As to mashing; does it cause white slavery?'' asked 
Senator Juul. 

"I agree as to the enormity of that offense; it is the 
preliminary to seduction," said Mr. Finch. 

Mr. Finch brought out that all boys and girls should 
be warned against mashing, as such action, however in- 
nocent, puts girls in an attitude where they can be ap- 
proached by the "cadets." 

Believes in Segregation 

Segregation was discussed by Captain Hollenberger 
of the District of Columbia police, in charge of the segre- 
gated district. Senator Juul questioned him. 

"I believe that a woman who would follow the life of 
evil should be segregated and not allowed to ply her voca- 
tion in residential portions of the city," said Captain 
Hollenberger. "She shouldn't be hounded, but uplifted 
if possible. 

"In the District of Columbia no woman is admitted 
to the restricted district unless known as a professional. 
We have fifty-two houses — 350 inmates. We have a 
booking system and we keep a record of every girl in the 
houses. Most of the inmates come from other cities. 
The number has decreased more than half in ten years." 

"Do you keep a list of the patrons?" Mrs. Brayton 
Ransom asked. 

"No, madam," replied the captain. 

"I think that would be the most essential," said the 
questioner. 

"Perhaps it would be a good thing, but the list would 
be too long," the captain said. 



154 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Living Wages Differ 

Mrs. Archibald Hopkins, chairman of the welfare de- 
partment of the National Civic Federation, was asked her 
opinion of wages as connected with immorality. 

" Minimum wages on which girls can live respectably 
differ in cities," she said. "In Chicago and New York, 
I believe it is $8 or $9. In Washington it is less. In 
the shops here the proprietors get girls who live at home. 

"The betterment of housing conditions would improve 
morals. I do not say it would make a bad person good, 
but good housing would aid in increasing decency. 

"I doubt very much if a. minimum wage would make 
the whole world good. I think education is what is 
needed. I think we need it in the schools. I think that 
one trouble lies in the character of the persons parents 
put in charge of their children. It is in lowering of 
standards and ideals that the danger lurks. 

"I think the reaction from the strict days of our 
parents has gone too far. There is too much liberty; 
too much license. Parents don't know where children go. 
Too much automobiling and all that. I think most of 
all this must be done in the home. You never hear much 
about principles. Times have changed, standards have 
been altered." 

Sees Peril in Higher Wage 

Training in the home was emphasized as one remedy 
for existing conditions by Mrs. Adolph Kahn, president 
of the Alliance of Jewish Women. 

"From my experience I have found," she said, "that 
minimum wage was not the paramount factor at all. 
Little girls who work in stores and are glad to go home are 
not so liable as girls who get higher wages. 



CONDITIONS IN WASHINGTON 155 

"Proper respect for mothers and sisters is the para- 
mount question. Simply a matter of temptation and 
strength of resistance, a matter of being pursued and not 
being able to withstand. I do not believe minimum wage 
is the solution of this. 

"The poor girl often has more resistance than the girl 
who has money. I have found that the girl on small 
wages often withstands temptations better than girls on 
higher wage. I think training in the home up to the time 
the girl is 16 and the training of the boys are the factors 
needed. Proper recreation is another." 

Gives Illegitimacy Figures 

Vocational education as a remedy for one phase of the 
problem was advanced by Dr. W. C. Woodward, health 
officer of the District of Columbia. 

"There were born in 1912," he said, "775 illegitimate 
children in Washington. That is 10.3 per cent of all re- 
ported births. The figures are not materially different 
from former years. Of all births in 1912 among white 
people, 2 per cent were illegitimate. One of every four 
children born to colored parents in Washington was 
illegitimate. 

"The figures show that immoral practices began at an 
early age. According to figures they began before earn- 
ing period arrives. We have had a birth to a 12-year-old 
mother already this year. 

"The matter of wage is merely an index to the physical 
and moral stamina of the girl. I don't believe a minimum 
wage would materially aid unless it could be fixed in pur- 
chasing power and adapted to the needs of the recipients. 

"We are turning out of our schools children who are 



156 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

not able to earn enough to support themselves.. It is the 
duty of states to see that girls get enough by fitting them 
to get enough. Apply the remedy to the schools so that 
young people will be equipped to be worth enough. " 

Details Bachelor Tax Plan 

Dr. Woodward urged the encouragement of early 
marriage among young men as one of the remedies for the 
social evil. He approved a suggestion by Senator Beall 
for laws placing a tax on bachelorhood, a graduated tax 
between the ages of 24 and 32, providing that all men over 
32 years of age should pay an annual tax of $100 as long 
as they remained unmarried. He added: 

"Fully 90 per cent of the immorality is at the instiga- 
tion of the man. We must educate the men to the gravity 
of their offense against the state." 

The single standard of purity was advocated by Mrs. 
A. A. Birney, president of the Mothers' Congress. 

"We must have that standard," she said. "It is 
only right for wives and mothers, and for men, too. How 
can it be obtained? Simply by educating the fathers and 
mothers to drill into the minds of their children the single 
standard of morals." 

Robert S. Barrett, whose mother is head of the Florence 
Crittenton Circle, which cared for 20,000 girls in seventy- 
eight homes throughout the country, appeared before the 
Commission. 

Low Wage "Last Reason" 

"Mrs. Barrett desires me to say low wages is one of 
the last reasons that have brought about immorality," 
he said. "The statement that no girls are allowed in 



CONDITIONS IN WASHINGTON 157 

segregated districts unless they are professionals is wrong. 
One case came to our attention in which a woman sold 
her daughter into white slavery in the district in Wash- 
ington within the last year." 

"Why does your organization see no connection be- 
tween low wages and immorality?" asked Mr. O'Hara. 

"Because the statistics of the Florence Crittenton 
missions show that a majority of cases are of girls that 
have had higher wages." 

"Who are your contributors in Chicago?" asked 
Senator Juul, "and are they employers?" 

"No," said Mr. Barrett. "With seventy-eight homes 
I couldn't tell you right off who they are. Our views are 
not influenced by anything of that sort." 

"Don't you conceive there is more vice among the poor 
than among the rich?" asked Senator Tossey. 

"I do not." 

Dr. Elnora Folkmar discussed the question of instruc- 
tion in sex hygiene and physiology. 

"I think a minimum wage a good thing, but not the 
only factor," she said. "The suggestive plays, the songs, 
dances, all hold dangers. 

"Something will have to be done that will give us a 
better moral fiber. If we had a stronger moral fiber so 
that men would not patronize commercialized vice, these 
girls could not sell themselves." 

Instances of low wages in Washington that astonished 
the committee were given by Miss Virginia Ransom, a 
suffrage leader. She spoke of girls who worked in laundries 
for $2 and $2.50 a week. 

This testimony led to a discussion between Mrs. 



158 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Hopkins and Senator Juul. The senator asked several 
questions as to whether it wouldn't be well to start a 
movement in Washington to compel the payment of higher 
wages. Mrs. Hopkins held that the cure should go deeper. 
" Educate the girls to be worth higher wages," she said. 
"That is the fundamental factor when the wage question 
is considered.' ' 

Mrs. Wiley Blames Low Pay 

Mrs. Harvey W. Wiley, representing the National Con- 
sumers' League and the Housekeepers' Alliance, after 
outlining the work of those organizations, was questioned 
regarding her views on low wages and their connection 
with immorality. 

"The league stands for a limited working day," she 
said. "I favor a minimum wage, and in my opinion 
there is a connection between low wages and immorality. 
I think that it is more difficult for a girl to resist tempta- 
tion when she hasn't margin enough to get amusement 
and recreation. 

"I believe we should have women police in every city 
and we should have votes for women. We can raise the 
age of consent. That would be one relief. Think of it! 
In some states a woman's body can be given away before 
she is 10 years old." 

Contrast Charity and Wages 

"What do you consider a reasonable minimum wage?" 
asked Senator Beall. 

"I should say $8," was the answer. 

" Do you think that any employer who will not pay a 
reasonable minimum wage should give anything away to 
charity?" asked Chairman O'Hara. 



CONDITIONS IN WASHINGTON 159 

"I do not," said Mrs. Wiley. 

"Well," said Mr. O'Hara, "in our hearings in Chicago 
an employer testified that his concern paid profits of 7 
per cent and still had a surplus of $2,700,000. He testified 
that it would cost $75,000 to pay this minimum wage. 
Should he have paid the $75,000, do you think?" 

"That is my opinion," said Mrs. Wiley. 

Would Regulate Joy-Riding 

Joy-riding, turkey-trotting and lack of privacy in 
overcrowded homes were discussed by Mrs. J. P. S. 
Neleigh, head of Neighborhood House. 

"I do not think," she said, "that a girl who lives in 
a crowded house where she has no privacy can live a right 
life. I think there are two ways of investigating con- 
ditions. Get the story of the girls as well as of the em- 
ployers. 

"If recreation is taken away from home into public 
places, I think it should be regulated. I think there 
should be regulation of this joy-riding that sends so many 
girls astray, and we should stop rag dancing, for all those 
things help toward sending girls on the downward path. 

Bars Society Girls' Dances 

"At the Neighborhood House, of which I am head, 
we furnish innocent recreation for girls. We have danc- 
ing, but we have no trouble in keeping our girls from rag 
dancing. I have had more trouble with society girls who 
have come down and volunteered their services." 

Several who had been invited to attend the hearing 
sent word that although unable to appear they had pre- 
pared statements of their views which they were forward- 



160 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

ing to the Commission, among them Mrs. Henry T. 
Rainey, wife of Illinois' representative from the Carrollton 
district. 

Representative Robert P. Hill of Marion pledged the 
Commission that he would present a bill for an investiga- 
tion of the vice problem in the District of Columbia. 

A score and more of experts were waiting for an op- 
portunity to present their views when the Commission was 
forced to adjourn by the approach of train time. 

Board Returns to Chicago 

At the conclusion of the hearing "the Commission left 
to return to Chicago. Requests from New York and 
Boston were received asking, Chairman O'Hara to hold 
sessions in those cities, but the existence of the senatorial 
deadlock at Springfield made it imperative for the in- 
vestigators to return. Later a more extensive inquiry 
in the East is contemplated. 



Chapter XIII 

MANY GIRLS RESENT CHARGES 

[Mollie Morris in the Chicago Daily News.] 

Just because a girl earns only $5 a week is she neces- 
sarily wicked? 

That she is might be thought the logical deduction 
from the line of inquiry followed by the committee in- 
vestigating conditions leading to vice in Chicago, say the 
girls who feel that they have been misrepresented. 

Scores of girls who work in department stores and 
other places of business and who manage to maintain a 
neat appearance and keep their self-respect on $5, $6 or 
$7 a week wish it to be known that low wages and vice 
do not necessarily go together. 

It is pointed out by these young women that a great 
deal of harm has been done to them. It is bad enough, 
they say, to scrimp and save and toil for the low wage, 
without having the neighbors and others who know their 
circumstances turn up their noses, smile sarcastically or 
raise eyebrows and say: 

" She earns $5 a week and you know what that means/ J 

Made Object of Contempt 
There are also customers who come into the stores, 
eye the girls superciliously and, remembering what has 
been said about the poorly paid shop girl and her " gentle- 



162 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

man friend," make her feel that she is the object of curi- 
osity and contempt. 

These supercilious ones are among the least harmful 
of that part of the public whose attention has been focused 
upon the low wage employee. There is the man of no 
morals, who has been led to believe from what he has read 
that all girls earning little money are willing to be his 
prey. It has encouraged him to take his stand on a 
corner near the entrances of stores where the girls pass in 
the evening and to follow and annoy them. All this, the 
girls say, has worked to their detriment. 

One $6 a Week Girl Talks 

" All this talk about the $6 a week girl finding it impos- 
sible to go straight is wrong," said a bright young girl, Miss 

D F , as she stood in front of her locker in the 

restroom of one of the stores at noon, putting on her 
wraps preparatory to going to a " lunch club" for a 7 
cent meal. "I don't mean that it is an easy thing to get 
along on that amount of money, or that a girl isn't often 
tempted by pretty clothes and a natural longing for good 
times, but what I do mean is that we do keep straight! 
It is not so bad for me," she went on to say, "because I 
have a mother and I live at home. I turn over every cent 
of my $6 a week to her and she manages some way to clothe 
and feed me, although there are younger brothers and 
sisters, and I really ought to be earning more, to help.' , 

The girl spoke with dignity and seriousness. She was 
pretty, too, in her plain little rough winter coat and black 
hat, and she said she had had good schooling and had 
gone for a time to business college, but $6 a week as cashier 



MANY GIRLS RESENT CHARGES 163 

seemed to be all she could command at present. She 
was asked to tell something of her life, what she got out of 
it in the way of amusement. 

She laughed a little. 

" There isn't much of that," she said. "By the time 
I get home after working from 8 to 6 I am pretty tired, but 
there are the dishes to wash, often a bit of ironing to 
finish for mother or some mending and things to do for 
the younger children. 

Has No Money for Shows 

" No, I haven't been to a ' show ' or any place of amuse- 
ment this winter. The kind of men who would ask me 
out are not the right kind, and I could not go with any 
other. It is so with most of us girls. We have not the 
money for pretty clothes to attract the boys who would 
really care for us and of course we have no money to pay 
for our own amusement, and as a result we stay at home." 

"If you had no home and were compelled to board 
could you get along on $6?" she was asked. 

"I'd hate to have to try," she answered, "but I know 
a girl who does. She lives at our house and pays $4 for 
her board. With the other $2 she has to pay car fare and 
buy clothes. We all help her as much as we can. I'd 
be more pleased for her sake than for my own if the law 
raised the minimum wage," she said as she gave her hair 
a final pat and went out of the room. 

Tells How She Spends $7 

Perched up on her high cashier's stool sat Miss J — 

S , a soft voiced, fair-haired young girl, who admitted 

she got $7 a week. 



164 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

"What do you do with your money?" she was asked. 

"All that $7?" she said, brightly, as she did something 
to a cash register in front of her and fixed a piece of paper 
on a spindle. "Why, I pay $4.50 for my room and board, 
which includes my lunch, which I carry with me every day, 
and I live away out on the west side too far to walk to 
work, so I spend 60 cents car fare. That leaves me $1.90 
for clothes and matinee tickets and flowers and taxicabs 
and, oh, yes, medicines. I've been sick so much of late 
that I haven't had a full week's pay for I don't know how 
long, and there were those old medicines to be bought. 
That has surely cut down my dress allowance consider- 
ably." 

"But how do you clothe yourself on that?" 

Makes Her Own Clothes 

"I don't have much," she said, seriously. "At night 
and on holidays I sew. I make my waists and skirts and 
everything except shoes." 

The store where she works requires the girls to wear 
black or black and white, and she had on a plain skirt and 
a pretty muslin waist with a strip of embroidery around 
the square neck and on the sleeves. Youth did the rest to 
make her attractive. 

"You are not the gay young thing that you are said 
to be, then? No presents of fine clothes, jewels and gay 
suppers?" 

The girl shook her head. 

"No, I work every minute I am home. My landlady 
is kind and does my laundry work because she feels sorry 
for me and I have so little time, but I always have some 
sewing or mending on hand. I go out sometimes with a 



MANY GIRLS RESENT CHARGES 165 

young man I know. His 'folks' are good to me, too, and 
without them I should not have much fun." 

" Could conditions ever be so bad that the 'gay life' 
would appeal to you?" 

The big blue eyes opened wide. The pale face had 
been pale before. 

"No, oh, no. Why, I haven't anything, not even 
health, but nothing could make me think of 'going wrong/ 
but it seems people do not give us credit for feeling that 
way." 

Docked of All But 20 Cents 

Two other girls were standing near. One, a little 

dark haired miss, said her name was R M ,andthat 

she lived at home. Her money goes toward keeping up 
the family and her spare time, she said, was passed help- 
ing to make the simple clothes and keeping herself in trim 
for work that lasts from 8 to 6 every day except Sundays. 

"Do you believe they will raise the wages of women?" 
asked the third girl. "Goodness knows we all need the 
money," she added. "The other w 7 eek I had bad luck and 
I haven't caught up yet. I had been short in my accounts, 
made mistakes. I am cashier," she explained, "and when 
I got my envelope I had only 20 cents coming to me out 
of my $7. Think of that, and my mother depending upon 
me for the week's groceries and seven of us children at 
home! The others are all too young to work." 

The other girl gave her name as Sallie. Sallie is a 
blue-eyed pink-cheeked girl, and she thinks girls have a 
pretty hard time to get along on $7, but she says that 
only a fool would listen to any of the soft talk men give 
them about clothes and the like. 



166 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Awake to Snares of Men 

"I know how it is," Sallie said. "A fellow you think 
is all right asks you to go for a walk or to the nickel show 
and you pass gay windows with pretty dresses displayed. 
You stop to look. 'Like that dress?' the fellow says. 
' Oh, it's lovely/ you say. 'Well, I can buy you prettier 
ones/ he says, 'if you will come and be my sweetheart/ 
and sometimes the girl is fool enough to do it." 

One experienced saleswoman in one of the State street 
stores — one who has worked her way up and won the 
respect of her employers — declared it was not the poorly 
paid $5 and $6 a week girls who were giving the vice 
committee work to do, but the divorcees and married 
women who would not stay at home, but preferred to work 
downtown and flirt with men. They were setting the 
bad example for the younger girls. 

"Let the poor little strugglers alone," she said. "They 
deserve the respect and assistance of every one, because 
they work hard and take their money home. It is wicked 
to brand them as the evildoers. Nor are the stores to 
blame for conditions. Most of them do all they can to 
surround their help with moral influences. It is in the 
home that the fault lies." 



CHAPTER XIV 

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 

The editorial opinions of the press, especially of the 
Chicago newspapers, expressed during the investigations 
of the Illinois Vice Commission which developed the 
question of low wages as an important factor in dealing 
with immorality, are of deep interest to all concerned. 
The attitude of the Chicago Tribune in particular — "the 
World's greatest newspaper" — was the subject of much 
public curiosity during the sessions of the Commission at 
which large employers of Chicago labor — large advertisers 
most of them — were examined, and no excuse therefore 
need be offered for reproducing the series of interesting 
and informative Tribune editorials in full. 

The Vice Inquiry 
(Chicago Tribune, March 11.) 

The tendency to investigate the economic sources and 
aspects of the social evil developed within a very few 
years marks a gratifying broadening of the social con- 
sciousness. An inquiry into this dark problem in the last 
decade would have dealt primarily if not entirely with 
the religious, moral, and legal phases. The present 
senatorial inquiry begins with the economic factor. 

Thus far the hearings, though colored here and there 
with inevitable rhetoric and loose talk, have developed 
interesting data, and this line of research should be fol- 
lowed fairly and fearlessly until a solid body of significant 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 169 

facts is laid down for a basis of intelligent action — legis- 
lative and administrative. The minimum wage idea is 
one of the most insistent at this time, and while it is di- 
rected at more evils than the so-called social evil, its bear- 
ing upon the latter is likely to provide its chief support 
with public opinion. 

The powerful moral impulse aroused by this tragic 
subject should not be allowed to precipitate hasty con- 
clusions. That poverty with its drain upon the moral 
and physical being is an important contributory cause of 
social delinquency is not to be denied. But the most 
accurate data should be procured to ascertain approxi- 
mately what the weight of low wage is relatively to other 
factors. The social factors should be considered as well 
as the economic, or we shall fall as far short of dealing 
practically with the question as the previous generation, 
which ignored the latter. 

No one who keeps his eyes open in this city can doubt 
the laxness of parental discipline is one of the chief perils, 
if not the chief, in the situation of the young. Girls and 
boys are permitted to remain upon the street late in the 
evenings. No conception seems to enter the minds of 
thousands of parents of what this must mean in breaking 
down the reserves of modesty and caution, and the ''max- 
imum of opportunity " seems to be added almost delib- 
erately with the "maximum of temptation." 

The problem of city youth is a tremendous one. But 
it begins in the home. This cannot be reached by legis- 
lation, but a public official body of investigators should 
consider it, and in drawing up a report should call public 
attention to this basic fact of the whole problem. Sexual 
life is powerful, and it needs moral direction and control 
as well as protection from economic overstrains. 

The home, the school, the social resorts, the play- 
grounds, the theater, as well as the place of employment 
are all within the problem and must be studied and con- 
sidered if this investigation is to reach its maximum use- 
fulness. 



170 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

It is gratifying to find that the witnesses thus far heard 
have shown the best of spirit and an inclination to 'act 
promptly for the betterment of conditions. 



Go Slow! 

(Chicago Tribune, March 14.) 

The senatorial investigation into white slavery and the 
social evil which has begun with consideration of the re- 
lation of wages to that problem can accomplish much 
good. 

It is also capable of accomplishing serious and wide- 
spread harm. 

If it is carried forward on the crest of a wave of hysteria 
it will destroy, not create. 

If it is not carefully and honestly directed it will 
result in legislation which will injure women workers and 
aggravate the very evils it seeks to ameliorate or cure. 

The demagogue, the sensationalist, the sentimentalist 
can do more damage with the leverage of uninformed public 
opinion and ill-considered legislation than years of re- 
pentance will give us time to recover from. 

Such an investigation has great potentialities for good 
if it is broad enough and deep enough, if it includes the 
wisdom of economists, sociologists, business men and men 
and women who bring to it practical knowledge of all the 
conditions affecting public morality. 

If it becomes the instrument of self-seeking politicians 
and of smattering pseudo-reformers it will be a curse to 
Illinois — and to its women in industry first of all. 

To legislate a minimum wage is a vital, critical act of 
governmental power, involving a long step into an almost 
untried field of social control and affecting very gravely 
economic and social laws. If this legislation is not ma- 
turely considered it will be destructive of its own ends. 

In Wisconsin, whose intelligent radicalism has led the 
way in many respects, they are interested in the minimum 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 171 

wage. Yet they are not legislating spasmodically in that 
commonwealth, but with scientific thoroughness and 
deliberation. Their legislation is based on careful con- 
sideration of industrial zones and the widely varying social 
and economic conditions prevailing in different sections of 
the state. On the other hand there are indications that 
some of our investigators are blankly ignorant of such 
elements in the problem and are laboring under the 
dangerous delusion that all necessary to solve the problem 
they are addressing is to order the payment of an arbitrary 
liberal wage minimum. 

Hasty and clumsily drastic legislation will set back any 
cause more than the worst tactics of bourbonism. The 
senatorial committee would do well to put on the brakes 
and take on a larger crew. Every real progressive, every 
informed humanitarian and social reformer, every woman 
in industry will pray to be delivered from impromptu laws 
which may shut the doors of honest opportunity to the 
worker and send women into the street rather than save 
them from it. 



Reason in Legislation 

(Chicago Tribune, March 15.) 
Reference has been made to the contrast between the 
crude assumptions of some of the Illinois senatorial in- 
vestigators who are looking into the social evil and the 
careful wage proposals in our neighbor state. It does 
not seem to have dawned upon Mr. O Hara and some of 
his colleagues that if hasty legislation sets a minimum too 
high or too rigid the first and most seriously injured will 
be the women he proposes to save. In Wisconsin they 
are not going off half cocked, and their laws and proposed 
amendments will provide useful reading for our Illinois 
crusaders. 

For example, the Mahon bill vests in an industrial 
commission the power and jurisdiction to (1) ascertain and 
fix such reasonable standards and to investigate, ascertain 



172 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

and determine such reasonable classification of employers, 
employees, industries, and localities as shall be necessary 
to carry out the purposes and enforce the provisions of the 
living wage act; (2) to investigate, ascertain, and declare 
what is a living wage for women and minors under the 
conditions in various cases and classes of cases lawfully 
under consideration; (3) to adopt reasonable and proper 
rules and regulations for the exercise of its power, etc. 

It is provided that upon complaint made to this in- 
dustrial commission that the wages paid to a female or 
minor employee are not sufficient to maintain such em- 
ployee under conditions consistent with her or his welfare, 
as defined in the act, the commission shall make a pre- 
liminary investigation. If upon inquiry there appears 
reasonable cause to believe the wage complained of is 
insufficient, then it becomes the duty of the commission 
to create a wage board consisting of two members chosen 
by the employers, two members by female employees in 
the occupation concerned, and one member of the indus- 
trial commission or a representative selected by the 
commission. 

This wage board shall thereupon hold hearings at an 
appropriate place or places, summon witnesses, and other- 
wise carry on a full investigation of the question at issue. 

Finally, the board shall report its findings to the com- 
mission, which may approve or disapprove, in the latter 
case having power to remand to the same board or to create 
a new one. If approved, the findings are binding upon all 
employers within the reasonable classifications as to in- 
dustry, place, etc., made by the commission. Fine or im- 
prisonment is provided for disobedience to wage findings. 

An appeal to the law courts from the final decision of 
the industrial commission is provided, but only upon the 
issues whether (1) the wage board or commission acted 
without or in excess of its powers, or (2) the determination 
was procured by fraud. 

The term " welfare" as used in the bill is defined to 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 173 

mean " reasonable comfort, reasonable physical well be- 
ing, decency, and moral well being." 

An important provision of the bill is the following : 

"The industrial commission shall make rules and regu- 
lations whereby any female or minor unable to earn the 
living wage theretofore determined upon shall be granted 
a license to work for a wage which shall be commensurate 
with his or her ability. Each license so granted shall 
establish a wage for the licensee, and no licensee shall be 
employed at a wage less than the rate so established."' 

Thus the proposed law recognizes that there is a re- 
lation between earning power and wages, and will continue 
to be until socialism takes the place of the wage system. 
A flat, arbitrary minimum would simply shut off the em- 
ployment of those not able to earn it. In some cases this 
is socially desirable, though painful to the victims. In 
other cases it is not desirable, and the Wisconsin legislator 
wisely recognizes it. 

Another fact recognized in this bill, but apparently 
ignored by some of our Illinois investigators, is the dif- 
ference of conditions which make a wage adequate in one 
district, trade, or industry, and even, perhaps, necessary, 
while inadequate and unnecessary in another district, 
trade, or industry. 

The worst thing that could happen from the point of 
view of the reforms sought by the vice committee is an act 
built in crass ignorance of economic law, in superficial 
consideration of facts disclosed, in hysterical or disin- 
genuous overemphasis of the sexual aspect of the problem. 

Time, impartial inquiry, and studious consideration 
alone can produce legislation which will protect and ad- 
vance the interest of the woman and the child in industry. 
Sentimental rhetoric, hysterical "moral" sensibility, and 
mushroom legislation will not help, but hurt them. Legis- 
lation is needed — but legislation of the right kind. 



174 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Wages and Vice 

(Chicago Tribune, March 18.) 

The warning against giving too much weight to the 
wage factor in the social evil is reiterated, and with growing 
reason. If the public is disposed to discount this warning 
when it comes from employers, it cannot be discounted 
in the case of social and religious workers in touch with the 
facts of social delinquency. It is a warning which should 
not be ignored. 

Politicians may get some immediate profit from ex- 
aggerating the economic aspect of the social evil, but in- 
telligent public opinion will insist upon the problem being 
studied honestly and every element presented for what it 
is worth, no less and no more. 

That want puts a strain on the moral as well as the 
physical being is obvious. That low wages are a domi- 
nant factor in the social evil is a conclusion that has yet 
to be demonstrated. Poverty produces many ills. Star- 
vation has induced theft, even murder. But to conclude 
from this that a large proportion of theft and murder is 
the result of low wages would be difficult to prove. It is 
little more doubtful, however, than that most women who 
indulge in sexual irregularities do so because their legiti- 
mate wages are $5 instead of $8 or $12. 

Lieut. Gov. O'Hara is quoted in the New York Herald 
as follows: 

"Our investigation into the causes and effect of white 
slavery in this state has shown conclusively that thousands 
of good girls are going wrong every year merely because 
they cannot live upon the wages paid them by employers." 

This statement is in contrast to the following of Mrs. 
Joseph T. Bowen, whose knowledge of social conditions, 
and especially of juvenile delinquency, is considerably 
wider and deeper than Mr. O'Hara's is or will be for a 
good many years: 

"I've no doubt that some working girls are driven to 
an immoral life by an insufficient wage, but on the whole 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 175 

we may well be proud of the virtue of our working women. 
It is in the disreputable dance halls that the white slave 
recruiters are working today. And it is the duty of society 
to protect the women in industrial life. They can live on 
$8 a week, yes, but it would mean ugly clothes, unap- 
petizing food, and unsatisfactory lodging. And above 
all they must have safe recreation." 

If Mr. O'Hara has evidence to support his sensational 
allegations, it has not yet been disclosed. If he has 
not, he stands convicted of a piece of unscrupulous bun- 
combe. The facts are called for. 

The harm done by the exaggeration of this aspect of 
the social evil is plain. It encourages delinquency by 
providing an easy excuse — an excuse which offers a senti- 
mental, pathetic justification for self -sale. A girl who sells 
herself because she is hungry or cold or homeless is to be 
profoundly pitied — and, what is more practical, is to be 
aided. But a girl who sells herself because she wants 
luxuries she cannot pay for, while quite human, is in a 
different class. In Mr. O'Hara's data we suggest he make 
the distinction. 

Another damage done by overemphasizing the wage 
factor is that it obscures the important social and moral 
factors. As The Tribune already has pointed out, the 
city streets are full of young girls and boys, mingling 
without surveillance, late into the evening. They are 
proof that many parents are neglecting their duty. They 
are proof that the community is neglecting its duty. 
Better provision must be made for wholesome association 
and pastime. 

" Youth will be served." It is not enough merely to 
condemn present conditions. It is necessary to provide 
better ones. The vicious dance hall should be abolished 
but reform should not stop there. The feet of youth are 
dancing feet. An enlightened community should see that 
they have places to dance — places not full of deadly pitfalls. 

By all means let us have well considered legislation to 
check ''parasite business" and provide if possible that 



176 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

women and children shall no longer be tempted or forced 
to work for a wage which will not permit them to live 
wholesomely. But let us understand that this is but one 
phase of our problem, and let us multiply the resources 
for clean and constructive entertainment in city and 
country. 

Minimum Wage Questions 
(Chicago Tribune, March 21.) 

In studying the question of a minimum wage there 
must be taken into account not only what the largest and 
richest employers can afford to pay as a minimum wage but 
what minimum wage can be paid by the great majority of 
business and professional people. 

Undoubtedly such prosperous employers as the big 
stores of Chicago and the big mail order houses, whose 
conditions alone have been investigated by the Illinois 
commission, can pay any minimum wage which the legis- 
lature may fix. 

But how about the small employers? How about the 
little storekeeper, the corner groceryman, the butcher, the 
dentist, the doctor? 

An unworkable law might put these out of business and 
turn their employees out of work. 

This, of course, would result to the advantage of the 
same large employers. 

The commission has only touched its subject. 



The Voluntary Minimum Wage 

(Chicago Record-Herald, March 21.) 
Several weeks ago a New Jersey public utility corpora- 
tion announced a minimum wage of $9 a week for its 
female employees. In making that announcement it 
frankly accepted responsibility for the moral, as well as 
the physical, welfare of such employees. Its action was 
commended throughout the country. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 177 

Now the International Harvester Company, a much 
larger employer of female labor, announces a voluntary 
increase in the minimum wage of girls and women. It 
makes $8 the starting point. The action is in line with 
other improvements and welfare activities voluntarily 
undertaken by the company, and is eminently enlightened. 

The fact remains, however, that thousands of girls 
are not worth $8 a week and would not be employed at 
that wage. Legislation cannot arbitrarily decree that or 
any other figure as a minimum. To deprive thousands of 
girls of all employment, and, necessarily, of opportunity 
to learn some vocation or business and advance through 
increased efficiency, is to render them a very poor service. 
Neither the cause of industrial efficiency nor that of social 
and individual morality would be furthered by such short- 
sighted measures. Legislation must reckon with facts 
and see things as they are. Minimum wages should never 
be fixed by statute without a careful, impartial study of the 
conditions of the trade and locality for which a legal mini- 
mum is urged. The study and the recommendations 
should be made by a fit commission of practical and earnest 
men and women, not by legislators in-a-hurry who know 
little, if anything, about industry, industrial training and 
scientific economics. 



CHAPTER XV 

WHAT GIRLS AND WOMEN SAY 
Describes Australian System 

Speaking before the Cook County Real Estate Board in 
Chicago, March 18, 1913, Miss Alice Henry, editor of 
"Life and Labor," a working girls' magazine, described 
conditions among the working people in Australia before 
and after the institution of minimum wage laws there. 

Miss Henry, a native of Australia, called the system in 
operation in Australia "an industrial agreement, enforced 
by law." 

"I was in Melbourne when the minimum wage ques- 
tion was * discovered' seventeen years ago," she said. 
4 'There was much ' home work' done by the working people 
there. Wages were so low and conditions so bad that 
something had to be done. 

"The first minimum wage measure introduced applied 
only to women and children, but this was changed to apply 
to all workers, men and women. It was started in four 
trades — clothing (including shoes), baking, butchering 
and furniture manufacture. 

"The movement was made by states, not by the federal 
government. The steps taken were these: Application 
was made first to a minister — a cabinet member. A resolu- 
tion then was introduced into the state parliament, cor- 



WHAT GIRLS AND WOMEN SAY 179 

responding to the state legislature here. As a result of the 
resolution a board was nominated — say, for instance, a 
board of seven members. Three of these would represent 
the employers, three would represent the employees and 
there would be a chairman or umpire. This board was 
nonpolitical. Six of the members, coming as they did from 
the employers and the employees, were experts on the 
question to be considered. 

Board Framed the Law 

"By this board a law was framed. A law was passed 
to last for two or three years, or until altered by a sub- 
sequent law. There is in Australia no penalty against 
striking, but strikes are rare. 

"The minimum wage now applies to ninety-one trades 
or occupations, each of which is highly organized. 

"The operation of this system has not ruined the 
country. Wages are 12 to 35 per cent higher than before. 
Hours of work have been reduced. The eight hour day, 
the Saturday half holiday and Sunday closing are practic- 
ally universal. 

" Deposits of the working people in the savings banks 
have increased fourfold. The state revenue has increased. 
Factories have increased 60 per cent. The number of 
workers has doubled. 

"The minimum wage idea has been subjected in 
Australia to the severest test. It has been amended five 
times in the last seventeen years, always, however, with 
an increased scope. It has become practically an in- 
dustrial agreement enforced by law. 



180 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

How It Benefits Employer 

"The reason why the employers approve of it is that 
it protects the good employer against the unfair com- 
petition of the unscrupulous employer. There is a 
tendency toward uniformity in the provisions between 
the different states. As yet, each state has its own wage 
laws, but there is a strong desire for federal legislation on 
the question. 

"One feature, of course, that must be taken into con- 
sideration in comparing conditions in Australia and in this 
country is, the women of Australia vote. That, necessarily, 
makes a difference." 

From a Springfield Mother 

Chairman O'Hara and other members of the Illinois 
Vice Commission have received hundreds of letters from 
mothers of all stations in life throughout the country, 
regarding the work of the Commission. Here is a sample 
letter : 

"Dear Lieutenant Governor O'Hara: 

"Ordinarily I do not approve of anonymous letters, 
but there are occasions that present themselves when we 
would like to express an opinion on public matters without 
gaining any notoriety, and for that reason this letter goes 
to you without any signature. Nevertheless, the contents 
of this letter come from a truly genuine interest in the 
work you have taken up : The question of low wages and 
crime and the sacrifice of the young girls who are unable 
to withstand temptation. 

"You have made a grand beginning in this matter and 
if you do not succeed any farther than the work already 
accomplished, I feel certain you have already laid the 
foundation for a monument to your memory for being 



WHAT GIRLS AND WOMEN SAY 181 

fearless and brave enough to make a beginning in what 
you think is morally right and just to all. Do not stop 
at the department stores in Chicago, but put forth every 
effort to continue your good work right here in Springfield 
(Illinois) where an investigation is much needed. 

"This letter is not written in the interest of my own 
children for they still are in a position to remain at home, 
but who knows when they may have to go out into the 
world and come in contact with the temptations that befall 
young girls? 

"Dear Mr. O'Hara, I do not know you, have never 
seen you, but I do want to know you and thank you from 
the bottom of my heart; and believe me, that as the shades 
of night fall around us and my own little family is safe in 
my home, we shall offer a prayer for you and your dear 
wife, asking God to be good and merciful to you, as you 
deserve His protection just as you are willing to fight for 
the protection of those less fortunate than you. I hope 
you will succeed and I feel sure that you will, for every 
mother who has the care of young girls will say all they 
can in favor of your work, hoping to see a successful end- 
ing. 

"After you have lived in Springfield and mingled among 
the people of this city you will see for yourself the attitude 
that exists here among the young girls, not only the wage 
earner, but among the girls generally speaking. While we 
condemn the shop girl, it is the example displayed by the 
would-be social set that is just as much to blame for the 
condition as by those who go wrong through force of cir- 
cumstances. Live and let live. 

"(Signed.) A Mother." 



Following are a few of the letters that have appeared 
in the public press during recent investigations in Chicago 
and elsewhere. Most of these letters are from women and 
girls; a few, easily recognizable, from men. 



182 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

The Penniless Girl's Fate 

Chicago, March 8. — In regard to the inquiry now be- 
ing made as to whether poor wages paid in stores and 
factories are the main cause of girls going wrong, permit 
me to say this much: 

I came to Chicago from a good, honest home, although 
poor. I found that it was almost impossible for an in- 
experienced girl to get employment, even at $5 per week. 
I tried for six months. 

Finally I had no money left with which to pay my way. 
By this I don't mean that I had only a few dollars left; 
I had not one penny in my shabby little purse. 

At last I came to the point that I had not enough 
money to pay for food and shelter. The day came when, 
as I said, I had nothing. 

I applied to the Women's Christian Association house, 
but they do not take in girls who are stranded, notwith- 
standing they have numerous little mottoes on their walls 
reading, " I. was a stranger and ye took me in." 

The result of this common, everyday story in Chicago 
was that I went wrong because of lack of money. If I 
could have found employment, even at $5 per week, I 
believe I could have saved myself. 

Do not understand me to say that $5 is enough; it is 
a miserable wage. But what I wish to arrive at is this: 
If in Chicago and every large city some philanthropist 
instead of putting so much money into libraries, colleges, 
memorials, etc., would build a large house and have it 
understood that every girl and woman who finds herself 
stranded in a large city could go there and find a shelter, 
even if she has not one penny, until she can get her bear- 
ings (I do not mean a place where they can sponge; let 
it be so arranged that they can do some house work while 
there, and in the meantime be looking for employment), 
there are comparatively few girls who would try to take 
advantage of a place of this kind. Nearly all girls who 
want to work are honorable and self-respecting. 



WHAT GIRLS AND WOMEN SAY 183 

When this plan is carried out then there will have been 
more accomplished to save the girls of today than could 
possibly be done in any other way. It can be of no use 
to me personally, for my chance is gone, simply through 
lack of a few dollars and a place to sleep, and it is a source 
of grief to me daily that life could not have meant more 
to me. But there are thousands of girls who need help 
and protection. 

Why not try my plan, you people who wish to do some- 
thing for the cause of "white slavery?" To those who 
have always had plenty it possibly seems almost absurd 
that a girl could find herself utterly stranded. Neverthe- 
less it is an everyday occurrence, and some day it may 
be your daughter or your sister. 

Continue your investigation, senatorial commissioners, 
and, if possible, secure for the honorable, good, little work- 
ing girl a decent living wage, but it is not so much the 
miserable small salary that is paid that causes so many 
downfalls; it is nine times out of ten an utter lack of 
money or employment. I know whereof I speak. 

A Girl of the Underworld. 



Minimum Wage for Women 

Chicago, March 9.— To bring about a reform that is 
truly a reform it is necessary to have many viewpoints. 
A failure in this may lead to results that are not remedies. 
While we are considering the welfare of the individual 
working woman we must also consider the welfare of the 
entire body of working women. There should be a mini- 
mum wage for women, yet is there not a danger, in our 
enthusiasm, of demanding too high a minimum wage? 
The employer who is forced to pay to incompetent and in- 
different employees a salary of SI 2 a week cannot afford 
to increase the salaries of his trained and competent em- 
ployees proportionately, and this must mean either in- 
justice to the more conscientious and valuable workers or 
a loss to the business. 



184 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

We have also to consider that many young women do 
as little work as they can do and hold their positions, not 
as much and as good work as they can for the salary they 
are paid. In such cases an assurance of a good salary 
would encourage indifference, and a loss of position, since 
a smaller salary could not be paid, would mean that some 
provision must be made for their support. Furthermore, 
among a large class of people the larger compensation 
would greatly increase the temptation on the part of girls 
to enter the industrial world at an early age and on the 
part of parents to give their children less education be- 
cause of the benefit their earnings might be to the family. 

The minimum wage should be something more than 
the amount which will barely cover the absolute neces- 
sities of life. The wage which does no more than that 
means "existing," not " living. " But I do not see how 
we can justly demand that it shall cover any extravagances 
or encourage poor management. Before increased wages 
can result in much true benefit there must be education, 
education of the sort that will inculcate right ideals and 
teach good management. There is probably as much 
complaining of too small salaries on the part of the woman 
who could live comfortably on her salary if she would, but 
who covets the luxuries of the rich, as there is on the part 
of the one who has a real struggle to provide the necessities. 

As for the young girl of 14 or 16 who is just entering 
the business world without preparation, it should not be 
expected that she should receive a woman's wage. If her 
parents cannot educate her to earn that amount they 
should at least contribute to her support until she has 
acquired the preparation through experience. The edu- 
cation of children is a just responsibility of their parents 
or of the state, not of the employer. 

To pay any worker what he really earns, what he is 
worth to the business, is only justice. To pay an incom- 
petent worker much more than he earns is an act of charity, 
and often misguided charity. 

A Woman Who Wokks. 



WHAT GIRLS AND WOMEN SAY 185 

Ethics and Economics 

Chicago, March 12. — I should like to answer "A 
Woman Who Works" upon the subject of "Minimum 
Wages for Women." While, as she says, there is a great 
deal which may be said for "the other side" there is still 
more which can actually be done for the girls' side. Who 
says that "all cannot earn the specified amount?" The 
idea is to protect those who cannot earn so much as their 
sisters. No matter what the reason may be, the girl 
must not be paid less than she can respectably live upon. 

What we are striving to do is get a means which will 
enable any girl, whether she is beautiful or homely, clever 
or dull, old or young, alone or at home, to earn a good, 
respectable, honest living, free from the things which go 
with poverty. We want to make these girls earn enough 
so that their own people will love and respect them and 
see that they are protected. We want to hold them to 
their own people, too, so that when the day of great trouble 
comes, as it may to them all, they will have some one near 
to counsel and help them. 

Adams Street. 

On $5 a Week 

Chicago, March 12. — [Editor of the Tribune.] — In 
reading your articles on wages for women, I must say I 
think the agitation is one of the best things a paper has 
ever done for working girls. You can't tell what it is to 
be hungry and cold and looking for work, and to be told 
$5 is all you can get to start on. I have no home and I 
can't get board for less than $5 a week. Then there is the 
laundry and carfare and lunches. Three nights a week I 
have to work until 10 or 11 o'clock. Many are getting 
smaller wages than that. No giri who has to pay her 
own way in this world and live honestly can do it on less 
than $12 per week. I hope and pray that you will have 
the blessing of God in everything if you can make some of 
these people pay for the misfortunes of some of the girls 
they have caused to fall. A Reader. 



186 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Mr. Hillman's Testimony 
Chicago, March 10. — Mr. Hillman should have the 
thanks of all honest people for his testimony before the 
O'Hara committee. When Mr. Hillman said he felt he 
was morally responsible for his help he told the truth. 
Others did not have the courage as he did to come out and 
state it. Would there were more employers of Mr. Hill- 
man's type. It is the duty of all employers of help to do 
all they can to protect and help them when they are 
tempted to go wrong. 

A Lover of Honesty. 



Should Allow for Savings 

Chicago, March 10.— Before the senate committee 
making investigations in regard to the wages paid to 
women and girls in our large establishments there has 
been much discussion as to what is the minimum wage a 
girl can live on and lead an upright life. That seems to 
have been the only question taken into consideration. 
Why should she not be paid such wages that it would be 
possible for her to save a little? If the employer or stock- 
holder is entitled to more than a good living; if they are 
entitled to make accumulations, why is not the employee? 
The first question to consider is, How much can she save? 
The average employee should have a wage that it would 
at least be possible to save 20 or 25 per cent. Whether it 
is a man or woman matters not. Her purpose in life 
should not be only to benefit her employer. Unless it is 
possible to save, she can have no ambition. 

■ A Reader. 

One Employer's View 

Editor Chicago American: — As an employer of girls 
I wish to say that I have found that when they go wrong 
it is through laziness and ignorance and the wages have 
nothing whatever to do with it. There is always plenty 
of room at the top for capable people. I believe every 
girl is exactly where she belongs, and getting every penny 
she is worth. 



WHAT GIRLS AND WOMEN SAY 187 

They have no ambition to work up and be able to earn 
$12 per week. The idea is that some one must hand them 
a living, if they can earn it or not. 

Mary E. W. 



Wants Minimum Wage for All 

Editor Chicago Examiner: — I desire to call your at- 
tention to one phase of the proposed minimum wage scale 
for women. If the minimum wage for women is fixed at 
$12 per week a like scale should be fixed for men or the 
very object of the Commission will be defeated. The 
reason is that there are thousands of men and boys work- 
ing for far less than $12 per week and many of them would 
seek the positions now held by women and girls for less 
wages than women might work for and the result will be 
that, instead of the small wage that a woman is now en- 
abled to earn, she will be unable to earn anything. If low 
pay has anything to do with the vice problem, what will 
be the result if a large number of women and girls are 
placed in a position where they are unable to earn anything 
at all and the money that they have heretofore earned is 
paid to men and boys, because they are able to work for 
lower wages than women? A. U. G. Sims. 



Contributing Causes 

Editor Chicago News: — A minimum wage law for 
women would be welcome and would mark a stride for 
progress. If it can be demonstrated (I do not think it 
can be) that the lowness of wages paid women and girls is 
what causes immorality among them it is my opinion that 
the majority of employers would soon raise wages and 
favor a minimum wage law. 

Girls who go wrong usually get the start downward 
through the negligence or inability of ignorant or careless 
parents who are unqualified for the proper training of 
children. It is here a minimum wage law for men and 
women, assisted by a minimum education law, would 
have a more desirable effect. 



188 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

Suggestive songs, cheap dive dance halls, saloons, 
poolrooms, obscene theaters, disreputable resorts and cafes, 
these with their evil influences and finished product cause 
more girls (also boys) to go wrong than low wages ever did. 
The advertising given the immoral life through sug- 
gestive songs and other agencies has lifted its social stigma 
and made its entrance less reproachful. A number of 
candidates are only awaiting the provocation, which some- 
times is low wages. 

While the fallen woman question is being discussed 
we should bring into the same question the male of the 
species (who, by the way, is much greater in number), and 
we may arrive at a more sensible plan of action. 

We shall have outgrown the causes of low wages, fallen 
people and their attendant evils when we have learned to 
exercise our intellects on problems concerning our social 
and economic conditions instead of the pink sheet. 

T. Elling. 

Minimum Wages 
Editor Chicago News : — The fixing of a minimum wage 
scale for girl employees should be. approached with caution 
by the legislature. 

In Chicago of the thousands of young girls who are 
drawing the small wages of $4 or $5 a week about all of 
them live at home. Their wages clothe them and a small 
balance goes to assist the father or mother, who in most 
cases is struggling along on meager wages to support a 
large family. If a law is enacted compelling employers 
to pay a minimum wage of $8, $10 or $12 a week, is it to be 
supposed that these young, inexperienced girls will retain 
their positions? Will not the employer do with less help 
and will he not force more work out of those he has? When 
he needs help, as a matter of course, he will employ older 
and more experienced persons. In many cases men will 
fill these places at the figures named. Would it not bring 
an influx of experienced girls from neighboring towns and 
cities and practically throw upon the streets thousands of 
young Chicago girls whose parents are unable to provide 



WHAT GIRLS AND WOMEN SAY 189 

for them and force them into a life of idleness? Vice and 
crime follow idleness. M. 



On $5 a Week 

Chicago, March 12— [Editor of The Tribune.]— Think- 
ing that probably my experience as a working girl can be 
of some benefit in deciding whether $5 a week is enough to 
keep a girl, would say that it might have been in grandma's 
days, but not at the present time. Some of the employers 
claim that they pay their help when they are ill and give 
them a vacation. This is very true, but are they the 
losers? The girls are only made to work harder while 
their sister is away. I, myself, am employed as a book- 
keeper for a number of years. I work honestly all the 
year around, and of course I get paid when I am ill, and 
even one week's vacation, which is a very short time, when 
a girl has to keep on going from 6 : 30 a. m. to 6 : 30 p. m. 
This same grind would wear out the very best machinery. 

Even $12 a week is a very small salary. Think of 
paying $4 to $5 a week for board and room. Where are 
your dinner money, carfare? A pair of shoes must be 
bought one week, a dress probably the next; each week 
brings in an extra expense item. Girls working in a de- 
partment store must look presentable, so where does the 
laundry bill come in? How can she save a little for the 
rainy days? The employer who pays a girl $5 a week 
would not give the girl a moment's notice when he intends 
to discharge her, but puts her out on her own resources, 
and what is the poor, homeless girl going to do? If she 
isn't brought up with the right spirit of right and wrong, 
when on every side there are numerous temptations, where 
is her destiny? If she is a pretty girl her downfall is 
positive, as the men of today are not of the marrying 
kind, consequently have to have something to pass their 
time away. L. E. K. 

The Minimum Wage 
Ripon, Wis., March 15. — Girls who get $5 a week at 



190 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

present are, as a rule, beginners. They are actually not 
worth their pay to the merchant. They are getting their 
business education at their employer's expense. Should 
your minimum wage law be enacted no merchant will 
employ inexperienced female help. In the readjustment 
young men will find places waiting. I can furnish you 
100,000 in a week to take that pay. And they will do the 
work twice as easily and twice as well as girls. Men have 
business ambitions; girls, as a rule, have none. Do not 
dream that any increase of wages will come out of store 
profits. It never does. Service costs money. Increase 
the cost and the consumer pays it. I. F. Strauss. 



Let the Probing Go On 

Chicago, March 17. — In the matter of the wages of 
women and morality it is worthy to note that if "the 
young men of today are not of the marrying kind," once 
again the answer may be found in the wage question and 
the cost of home maintenance. In any event, let the 
probing go on until the money craze meets itself face to 
face. E. L. K. 

The Home Environment 
Ann Arbor, Mich., March 16. — In its attempt to 
establish such a vital connection between immorality 
and low wages, it would seem that the committee will 
find it a difficult matter to explain the widespread 
immorality among women who are engaged in occu- 
pations that are well paid. Possibly they will find 
that a demoralized home environment — or none at 
all — is a deeper cause for immorality than low wages. 

A. P. Madden. 

Stenographers* Wages 
Chicago, March 15. — Relative to the minimum wage 
for women, those trained for stenography receive no more 
in many situations than those wholly untrained for any 
trade, on account of the great number of those working in 
that profession, and because there is no trade organiza- 



WHAT GIRLS AND WOMEN SAY 191 

tion. I firmly believe that a minimum wage of $12 per 
week for women and girl stenographers would be the only 
just wage; $5 and $6 are now often paid, and have been 
for years past. E. M. M. 

Low Wages and Sin 

Gary, Ind., March 11. — Every decent American citizen 
is vitally concerned in the progress and outcome of the 
investigation being made by the Illinois legislature into 
the relation of sex immorality to low wages. There is 
only one fearful apprehension which confronts us, and 
that is that it will end in some paper resolutions, which 
will "view with alarm" the awful facts which have been 
disclosed. That is where the Chicago Vice Commission 
has buried its information, and it is the same graveyard 
in which ministerial conferences have interred their varied 
information of the state of affairs. The people demand 
practical results. 

With reference to the prediction made in the testimony 
of Mr. Thorne that Illinois would suffer through factories 
leaving the state if a minimum wage law of $12 were en- 
acted, such a situation would never occur. It is simply 
an effort to intimidate the legislators; but we hope they 
are built of sterner stuff, unable to be scared by such 
bugaboos. 

The evidence is incontrovertible that low wages are 
responsible for unchastity; that the employers can well 
afford to remunerate their employees better; that this is 
not being done. Let the good work proceed. Let the 
city co-operate by driving out the dives and panders, and 
Illinois will have done a good day's work. Indiana will 
be compelled to do likewise. E. Braddock. 

The Kitchen Remedy 

Chicago, March 5. — I read in The Tribune that a 

young girl had been arrested for stopping a man on the 

street and soliciting money. Her excuse to the judge was 

that she was so poorly paid by the store for which she worked 



192 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

that it was impossible to live on the money. She named 
the sum received weekly and the judge at once dismissed 
her, as he agreed that it was not possible for her to live on 
that amount. Now I will tell any woman who is obliged 
to work for her living how she can live honorably and 
comfortably if she chooses to do it. 

In February, 1909, a young girl came to this country 
from Sweden. She could speak only a few words of 
English when she landed in Boston; those were learned 
on the boat. She came at once to Chicago to find employ- 
ment and in July, 1909, was engaged by me as a domestic. 
As our house is small and there are only two in the family 
and I am compelled to live very quietly on account of ill 
health I need only one maid. She does the cooking, 
washing, and ironing and cleans the house on the inside. 
Thursdays and Sunday afternoons are her days out. 
After the dinner dishes are washed in the evening her time 
is her own till she begins breakfast in the morning. She 
is paid $6 a week and given room and board. Up to this 
time she has put $300 in the bank and has bought plenty 
of nice clothes. 

She dresses well and has also paid a dentist's bill of 
$150 and will soon have another bill of $50 to pay. She 
will not have to draw on her bank account for that or for 
her spring clothes, as the money that has been coming in 
since January, 1913, will pay for all. R. E. O. 

"Me Go Into a Kitchen!" 

Berwyn, 111., March 5. — I note with much regret that 
the Vice Commission reiterates the insult that is freely 
offered — even from the bench — that girls whose wages 
are less than $6 per week are living lives of shame unless 
they live at home. It is a base, wicked slander on thou- 
sands of honest working girls whose lives are pure as snow. 
Not only that, the falsehood is putting on their track 
libertines who would not think of approaching them with- 
out this information that they are all for sale, that it is 
impossible for tbem to live clean lives (morally, for it 



WHAT GIRLS AND WOMEN SAY 193 

may be physically difficult) on $6 a week. She cannot 
live well, but no decent girl sells her body for books — as 
one sinning sister said — for pleasure, for clothes, or for 
food when there are so many decent kitchens ready to 
take even inexperienced workers at fairly good wages. 
Low wages never made a white slave unless she was 
morally unclean. She might be made into a thief by low 
wages, but nothing worse. One woman of the underworld 
when urged to lead a better life said she could not make a 
living and when offered kitchen work said, "Me go into 
a kitchen!" 

Raise woman's wages if possible, but not so high that 
it is more than she can possibly earn; but whatever you 
do, cease putting the tempter on her track by repeating 
the insulting falsehood. S. E. M. 



"Back Door, Please!" 

Chicago, March 24. — All statistical reports which I 
have noticed show a far greater per cent of girls who go 
wrong among those engaged as domestics. I think it will 
be conceded by all that the " kitchen girl" who receives, 
besides board and lodging, 15 a week [which is consider- 
ably below the average for such service] is earning more 
clear profit than the girl employed in factory, store, or 
office who receives $12 a week [which is considerably above 
the average], as out of the latter amount must come board, 
lodging, car fare, lunches, and washing. Considering this, 
we can hardly say that low wages are to blame for her 
downfall. 

However, the girl from the factory, the store, or the 
office enters and leaves the. place which she calls home by 
the way open to all self-respecting persons, the front door. 
What is more, her guests do the same. But the stigma of 
serfdom is placed upon the domestic, who is supposed to 
have the protection of a good home, and she must skulk 
around the house after dark if she wishes to go in or go 
out, and, what is much more humiliating, her guests must 
do likewise. Many a man who would hesitate to walk up 



194 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

and ring the front door bell will tap on the kitchen window 
or door and ask to be admitted. 

I wonder how many club women, society women, 
church women, temperance women, or philanthropic 
women are really enough in earnest in regard to diminish- 
ing this evil to go home and say " Bertha, Nora, or Hilda 
[as the case may be], hereafter I would like to have you 
enter and leave the house by the same door as the rest of 
the household, especially at night, and please tell your 
friends I would like to have them use the front entrance 
also." 

Does the back door entrance have anything to do with 
this evil? Statistics indicate that it has. 

Philosopher. 



Chapter XVI 

TWO VIEWS OF THE PROBLEM 

A Great Merchant's View 

"Will $2 save a girl? Will $3?" demanded Henry Siegel, 
the New York merchant, when interviewed by a special 
correspondent of the Chicago Tribune in connection with 
the work of the Illinois investigators who have a minimum 
wage law under consideration. 

Not the wage, but the bringing up and home influence, 
determine the morality of a girl, according to this employer 
of 5,000 or 6,000 men and women, boys and girls. 

A minimum wage, he held, would drive women out of 
business, because a man at $12 is worth more than a 
woman at $7 or $9. It would force the girls into the 
streets, he declared. 

Says Sympathy Is Blinding 

"The hysteria of sympathy," he said, "has blinded 
the Chicago investigators to the results of the law they 
propose. Out of pity for the woman I am opposed to the 
minimum wage law. 

"Women would be driven from business and men 
would take their places. W T hen such a law is enacted 
more women will be upon the streets of our cities than ever 
before in the history of this country. 

"I resent the implication that women and girls em- 
ployed in stores are as a class immoral. They are as moral 



196 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

as any people you can find. They are above the average. 
Good salespeople rank high. Their intelligence, and, 
above all, their morality should not be impugned. Indeed, 
I do not know of one among all my employees who is 
immoral. I could not point out one. 

Morality up to Associations 

"It is ridiculous to say that paying a woman $2 a 
week more or less will make her immoral. The matter is 
one of associations and relatives. I could point out one 
of the best paid professions in which women are engaged 
which I am sure would reveal a larger percentage of im- 
morality. 

"If the mother is careless, uninterested in her children; 
if the girls are allowed to run the streets, it makes little 
difference what the wages are as against the temptations. 

"The employer is not responsible for the morality of 
his employees. How can he be? Let those who propose 
the minimum wage as a cure for vice pause and ask if 
they are not denying the very existence of integrity aside 
from an attendant consideration of cash. Will $2 save a 
woman? Will $3? 

Safeguards About Employees 

"In saying that an employer is not responsible for the 
morality of his help I do not mean that he must take no 
concern as to their welfare. I mean that other circum- 
stances have a primary influence. 

"As a matter of fact I have expressed my confidence 
in the 6,000 women in my employ because of certain safe- 
guards provided by the management. We will not em- 
ploy immoral girls. Such characters are discharged. They 
are not only inefficient, but their influence is bad. 



TWO VIEWS OF THE PROBLEM 197 

"An employer can be held accountable within reason 
for the environment in which his work people find them- 
selves. But immorality is subject to an absolute standard, 
it cannot be gauged by financial considerations. If a 
clerk is paid $25 and has a taste for automobiles and other 
forms of extravagance, immorality resulting, then is the 
employer responsible? 

Wages Depend On Merit 

"Now to consider the minimum wage proposal in the 
point of effect. Girls, as well as men, must be paid in 
proportion to their services. Wages depend upon merit. 
Girls in my employ have worked up from cash girls to 
buyers at salaries from $40 to $50 a week. All cannot be 
paid alike. 

"I think from $7 to $9 is the least girls without family 
can live on. Within this range it depends upon the 



Menace to Womanhood Must Be Removed 

(Lt. Gov. Barratt O'Hara of Illinois in The Day Book, 

Chicago.) 

The question of a minimum wage has passed beyond 
the realm of economics. 

It has become intricately woven into the problem of 
our American womanhood, and as such it is unquestion- 
ably the most vital issue of today. 

Whatever else may happen, no man will deny that 
every effort must be made, and made speedily, to stamp 
out once and for all the shame of white slavery in America. 

This despicable traffic reaches into every city and town 



198 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

of the land and down at the roots of the evil lies the crime 
of starvation wages! 

If a minimum wage law is a necessary step on the road 
to this second great emancipation in our union, then a 
minimum wage law must be put into effect at the earliest 
moment possible. 

The mass of testimony presented to the committee ap- 
pointed by the Illinois senate to investigate the white 
slave problem in this state, and of which I happen to be 
chairman, leaves little room for doubt that low wages and 
vice do go hand in hand! 

In every city of the United States hundreds and 
thousands of girls are receiving less, and considerably 
less than $5 a week! 

Can they live virtuously on these pittances? 

Let every city and town from coast to coast and 
boundary line to boundary line investigate penetratingly 
into home conditions and the result is not apt to be far 
different from the result in Illinois. 

A large majority of the fallen women who are coming 
before our committee confess that they sacrificed their 
virtue in order to live! 

Their wages were not sufficient to keep off starvation. 

When such a shameful fact confronts us, there seems 
one effective and imperative solution. 

Now I do not wish to be considered as one who com- 
mends a woman who will give up her virtue in preference 
to her life, if the crisis arises. 

But I am humiliated to know that because of grinding 
wages the crisis is ever allowed to loom in all its ugliness 
before any American girl! 



TWO VIEWS OF THE PROBLEM 199 

And if these wages are paid by millionaire "philan- 
thropists," so much more ugly is the blot on our pride. 

From every augle of the evidence thus far presented to 
Senators Juul, Beall ; Tossey, Woodard and myself, it 
appears conclusively that wages have much to do with 
white slavery. 

A minimum wage law, then, would seem to be the only 
natural remedy. 

Finding this to be the case, I have communicated 
with the governor of each and every state in the union, sug- 
gesting a commission similar to that now at work in 
Illinois. From many of these I have already heard. 

I have little doubt that we shall have prompt and 
definite action throughout the country resulting in legis- 
lation establishing a pretty uniform minimum wage scale. 

We have also visited President Wilson, asking his 
support of a national minimum wage law. 

With the overwhelming popular sentiment existing in 
favor of a minimum wage law, I feel no doubt as to the 
prompt saving of thousands of girls through the abolition 
of starvation wages. 

The menace to American womanhood must be removed 
now and forever, or America will go the way of Rome. 

It is our patriotic duty to stand by this until the 
problem is solved! 

Results of the Inquiry 

" Three notable results," says Chairman O'Hara, "have 
come from the investigations made by the Illinois Senate 
Commission on 'white slavery.' 

"There has been a general exodus by the country girl 



200 THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING 

from the city. Parents, aroused at the revelations we 
have made, are sending for their daughters, who now are 
glad to go home. 

"The second effect we have noted is that child labor 
has been discouraged. Employers are commencing to 
dread public criticism which is being heaped upon them 
for employing very young girls. 

" The third, and almost equally important effect, has 
been the decrease in the number of girls of well-to-do 
families who apply for work 'just for the fun of it.' Such 
girls have had more to do in making for immorality than is 
known generally. Drawing an allowance from their 
parents, they dress in a manner that their poorer sisters 
cannot imitate, at the wages .paid, unless they sell their 
virtue. 

"The fearless attitude of the press deserves the highest 
praise, for without its co-operation we could not have ac- 
complished a mite of the results already attained. 

"These results were brought about by the support of 
the press, but for the ultimate solution of the complex 
problem we must look to the mothers." 



AUG 



9 1913 



